


A Break in the Chain of Light

by bodingly



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: M/M, Slow Burn, canon divergence after season 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2018-04-15 02:59:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 49,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4590474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bodingly/pseuds/bodingly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are serious implications to two non-Demons being bonded together by a Demon ritual, and Tom still cares about Star Butterfly enough to keep the Underworld's wrath from touching her. The downside is that to save her, he'll have to bond with the human that got them into this mess.</p><p>It turns out that bonding with Marco is a sacrifice Tom is more than willing to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Time works differently in different worlds. Mewni's years are much longer than Earth's (which is how Star has lived a long life at 14 years) and the Underworld's are exceptionally longer.

He managed to unfreeze himself and collect his bearings the moment the carriage disappeared from view.

What followed would be described by the survivors as 'the most amazing turn around to a really lame Blood Moon Ball in the history of existence' and by the deceased as 'a personal failure for both himself and Tom' while they sadly pet the charred remains of a once dear pet.

If Tom were honest with himself, the episode he had gone through had been so intense that he had no recollection of what exactly his response to watching his Starship fly away from him _again_ was. If he were honest with anyone in the Underworld, he wouldn’t be responding to their over enthused high fives and compliments about his work. The public’s perception of him was at an all time high because of his slip in control, and he had yet to form an opinion on that particular fact.

The days following were filled with so much moping and self-ward aimed anger that even his parents, busy as they were, took an interest.

“So what, if the little bitch doesn’t want to be Queen of the Underworld,” the King said over dinner, ripping the leg off of some creature’s hind before taking a vicious bite from it. “Good riddance, Tom. Maybe you’ll focus more on your duties, which you have failed to properly address for some time,” he continued with a slight sneer on his face.

“Don’t call her that,” Tom said halfheartedly, skewering one of the screaming mouths on his plate and watching as it slid off of his fork and fell back down with a plop, momentarily silenced by the injury.

“While I agree that your father’s vocabulary could use some work,” the Queen chimed in from next to her husband, sending him a dirty look, before her eyes turned back to Tom and softened noticeably. “It is time to give up Princess Butterfly. She is ill-suited for Mewni’s throne, let alone the Underworld’s.”

“I guess,” Tom said, letting his fork chase the screaming lips, which were now hopping madly around his plate, save the one that was limping away. He pretended to stab at them, and they sobbed.

“Maybe now is a good time for you to go back to your studies,” the Queen said. “I think you are _finally_ ready to learn some of the finer aspects of manipulation.”

“Your torture methods could use some work as well,” the King grumbled from behind his goblet.

The Queen shot him a glare. “Any fool with a knife and something to prove can torture. But it isn’t often a demon can trick their enemies into torturing themselves, and I find the satisfaction so much greater in the later than in the former.”

Tom’s mind was beginning to wander, as it usually did when talk of his long neglected studies became the topic of conversation at the table. And as was the recent trend, it quickly shifted to the event that had led to his stupor, the now infamous Blood Moon Ball. It was practically taboo to mention that night in his presence, but that didn’t stop the whispers that trailed after him wherever he went, and it certainly didn’t slow down the steady stream of letters he had been receiving about the event. He never answered any of them, but he read them all just in case some university needed a lecturer, just in case some dignitary needed his opinion on something, just in case something would manage to distract him for a single second from thinking about Star Butterfly. They never did, and they stirred anger in his chest that, at the very least, turned the letter to ashes, if not the room he was in at the time.

Star had been a horrible choice in a date to the ball; the logical part of him had recognized that from the beginning. Star Butterfly hated the Underworld’s customs and traditions the same way he despised Mewni’s. But Tom had needed to know if he should give up on her or not, and emotion trumped logic in this instance. Tom needed to see if the blood moon would bind them, and if it didn’t, he would have given up and taken her back to Earth and asked to remain friends. He gave little thought to how she would have responded in this imaginary scenario. He told himself she would have said yes.

But his chance—his closure!—had been taken from him by that human that was always around Star, some insignificant little child that had scarcely been alive for a decade! He remembered when Starship had been born; he had been present at the christening and had watched her grow for centuries before taking an interest in her. Their relationship had been cemented over the years through time the human couldn’t even begin to fathom, as he would have lived and died in the same slot of time Tom had taken an interest in Star Butterfly and then worked up the nerve to ask her out.

But now, Star Butterfly was bound for eternity to a mortal soul, bound through some agreement neither fully understood (though Star, to her credit, did understand some of what a bond entailed from Tom’s repeat attempts to teach her about his culture) or gave much importance to.

A tiny tendril of memory pushed its way into Tom’s mind, centuries old now, about his initial studies of bonds.

“Bonds are exclusively an Underworld privilege,” the muscled tutor had said in a low baritone. “Demons can share bonds with non-demons, but it is unheard of for a bond between two of another world to exist, and an abomination if it were ever created.”

The reality of the situation doused Tom’s anger as effectively as a bucket of ice water (or a block of ice).

It was illegal for two non-demons to bond, especially with something as significant as the blood moon’s light. Star and her human had (in fairness, unknowingly) committed a crime against the Underworld.

No one knew that the human (Marco, his mind supplied) was anything other than a normal demon, but gossip travelled in the Underworld, and eventually, the whispers of the young would fill the ears of the old. The streets would be filled with cries of retribution, and information about her location would spread nearly instantly. Earth would become a wasteland, all for the wrath of the Underworld. Star would be a target, as would Marco. Both would be killed to satisfy the bloodlust of the traditionalist masses. And the thought of Star lying dead on the ground after being overwhelmed by demons hell-bent on righting the perceived injustices against them? The thought of Star lying dead over something that wasn’t even her fault? It _infuriated_ him.

“Tom dear,” the Queen chimed in, and her voice was like nails over a chalkboard to Tom’s clouded mind, “you just set fire to your dinner plate.”

Tom put the fire out, glad that, at least, the lips had finally shut up. One was whimpering pitifully, and all it took was a final stab to make it, too, finally fall silent.

The Queen eyes the lips with thinly veiled distaste.

“Tom,” she began, “those lips were grown in the best fields the kingdom has, and you waste the talents of our farmers when you incinerate them.”

“They’re too sweet,” Tom grumbled.

“They’re sugar lips, Tom,” the Queen reminded him. “And we went through a great deal of trouble to get them so fresh.”

“A great deal, huh?” Tom muttered scathingly. The sugar lips at the ball had tasted better than these…

 _‘If only I could break the bond between Star and the human,_ without _killing either of them,’_ Tom thought sullenly, already discarding the idea. Bonds were notoriously difficult to break if someone actually cared about the beings involved; they were practically _deals_ by demon standards...

“Mother,” Tom asked delicately, “what would have happened if Star and I had bonded souls during the Blood Moon Ball?”

“I would have killed the girl myself,” his mother promptly replied. “The only way to break a bond like that is to overwhelm it, and the easiest way to do that is to kill half of the bond.”

Tom ignored the anger churning in his gut at the thought that his mother would do that to him. He ignored the parts of him that desperately wanted to kill the human, the side that wanted revenge for Marco’s meddling, and the side that wanted to do it to _every_ mortal he came across. Star Butterfly would declare a blood feud on the spot and refuse to utter a single word to him that wasn’t a curse if he hurt her friend.

“But there are other ways to break a bond?” he asked, settling the matter in his mind. He wouldn’t kill Marco, even if he really wanted to. It would ruin whatever standing he had with Star forever.

“Of course there are!” the King said with a grin. “How do you think I got your mother to marry me when she was engaged and bound to my bastard of a brother?”

The King only had one brother, if Tom remembered correctly. He didn’t see Dantalion much, but he was present for most royal events, being brother to the King. Tom had always assumed that Dantalion hated the responsibility that came with being king and refused to take it on at all.

“Uncle Dan was meant to be King?” Tom asked, confused. “I thought he didn’t want the position.”

“Dantalion was uncouth, and I didn’t need a man that would go against me for the sake of going against me by my side, but yes, he was meant to by my King,” the Queen said dismissively. “Your father was a far better candidate, and from the same ancient blood. That he was second born meant very little to me when Dantalion left, unannounced, for three days to bathe in the river Acheron with every mourning widow he could find.”

“So how did you break the bond?” Tom asked, the anger that had been ever present since Star had left dissipating like a puddle on a hot day.

“I made a deal with your father,” the Queen said, "that included a soul bond. The combined power of the deal and the bond was enough to overwhelm the old bond, and Dantalion walked away from our engagement with little more than a bruised ego and several less fingers.”

“I assume that you took the fingers yourself,” Tom said, a bit eager to know what she had done with them.

The Queen grinned, her fangs splitting her lip from how wide her smile grew. She pushed back the hair covering her ears to reveal two gray, claw tipped fingers dangling from her earrings.

The King gave a hearty laugh next to her.

“He still wants them back, if you can believe it!” the King howled, slamming his goblet on the table with such force the contents of the table shook violently.

“That fool will have them back only when his balls hang in their place!” the Queen declared, and she and the King laughed uproariously.

Tom let them laugh, thinking about how to proceed with this line of questioning without being too suspicious about it.

“What about two souls bound with the light of the Blood Moon?” Tom asked impatiently when their laughter did not die down for what seemed like minutes.

Surprisingly, it was the King who pulled himself together first.

“A bond is, or it isn’t,” he chortled. “There is no bond that is stronger than any other, which was why a bond and a deal overwhelmed Dantalion’s bond with your mother. The Blood Moon Bond is only special because it’s seen as the only purely emotional bond. Although, if you’re planning on breaking up Butterfly and whatever ill-fated demon was matched with her, I doubt I can stave off your mother’s wrath long enough for Butterfly to escape with her life if the two of you bond instead.”

Tom nodded thoughtfully, the fledglings of a plan beginning to unfold in his mind.

“I’ll be taking my leave now,” Tom said, pushing away his barely touched plate of food. “Goodnight, mother, father.”

“Goodnight, dear,” the Queen called, and the King echoed the sentiment.

Tom left the banquet hall and began the long trek back to his rooms in a rare contemplative mood.

He had a plan, or at least the beginnings of one. But why was he even plotting to save Star’s life in the first place? What had she done to deserve—

White hot pain shot through his heart, and he struggled to push it away.

Star Butterfly deserved his attempts to save her from an evil she could neither comprehend nor infallibly handle. Time was against her, in that regard. Demons tended to be much smarter than the Monsters she handled without a problem, and stronger to boot. She could stop them for a while—for hundreds of years, even—but she would be hunted, at war with a neighboring kingdom before she became Queen, and eventually, she would be outsmarted and destroyed.

He’d save her that trouble; it was the least he could do. That he wanted to break the bond for personal reasons as well was unimportant politically. It was not Tom’s place to break a lawful bond on the grounds of a personal vendetta.

‘ _But_ ,’ his mind whispered, ‘ _this is a hardly a lawful binding, isn’t it? Blood moon or not…this deal must end before someone else finds out and agrees with me._ ’

A realization of such magnitude hit Tom so suddenly that he faltered on a step leading up to his room. Tom’s eyes widened and he was so upset he had to sit on one of the hard, unforgiving stairs and let his dread run its course for several minutes.

He had to bond with a _human_. A mortal he particularly detested, all for a girl who didn’t even love him.

‘ _No_ ,’ he stopped that train of thought immediately. He wasn’t about to talk himself out of anything. If he would break Star’s bond with Marco, and the only way to break a bond was a deal and a bond, then he _had_ to bond with a human.

Star would never let him bond with her, and if she would even entertain the notion, it would take centuries before she agreed, if she even agreed. By that time, she would be dead by some traditionalist group or another. If he still tried to warn her, she would disregard him. A shudder went through him, but he pushed the disgust away. He’d do it; he’d make a deal _and_ bond with the kid if it meant keeping Star safe.

As he entered his room, the part of himself that still loved Star panged. If he went through with his plan, it would be the end of them. There would be no makeup, no future together. He’d be stuck with the human, and as much of a pain as it would be, he’d remain faithful to the little whelp.

Tom summoned several books and laid them on his desk, careful to mind his anger around the delicate old tomes in front of him. He sat and began flipping through the oldest one, searching for the correct page.

It was a shame, that his most genuine, kind action towards Star would seal their destinies apart from each other for eternity. It was an absolute shame, that he was sacrificing his own romantic future for the only person he ever really loved.

That night, Tom resumed his studies for the first time in six hundred sixty (or so) mortal years.

* * *

A mortal year of studying bonds and deals told him that he would need to study Marco to offer a deal tailored specifically for him.

In some cases, someone could be so greedy that a simple offer of wealth would be enough to get them to agree to whatever the deal entailed, but Tom doubted that this human would fall for something like that.

His third eye turned out to be much more useful than it usually was in this venture. While it couldn’t do anything as impressive as look into the future, he could use it to see into the present lives of others while their guards were down. He rarely used his eye; it was a breach in the trust of those he liked, and anyone he disliked, he would rather not see more of them than he had to. All magic uses, including Star herself, were blocked from his gaze by their magic, but the human was under no such protection.

After that, Tom spent a lot of time watching when he felt it was appropriate. He could never watch for long (the concentration took a lot out of him) and he refused to watch when Marco went into the bathroom he and Star shared, and he absolutely refused to watch Marco if he was alone. It was vulgar and unbecoming of the future King of the Underworld to stoop to such levels, even if he needed information about the boy for his deal.

So Tom watched when it was safe: he watched Marco excel in school, watched him fawn over some other mortal between classes, watched him fight whatever idiots had decided to attack Star (he knew Star was there from the conversations he overheard, but he could never hear her voice or see her. The fact brought him great joy and great sorrow). Tom watched and watched and watched Marco Diaz, trying to find a weak spot, something he could use to get Marco to agree to a deal, and again and again turned up empty handed.

* * *

Tom learned much, maybe too much, about Marco Diaz during the next mortal year. Enough that the rage and disgust the filled his heart whenever he laid eyes on the boy quickly vanished when Tom realized that the kid was painfully shy and awkward whenever he saw his crush, who was most certainly not Star Butterfly. Enough where he looked forward to seeing what trouble Marco would get into and eventually overcome. Enough that he began to wince at the injuries Marco sustained and felt that he should in to help the mortal instead of watching him get hurt from perfectly preventable causes.

“So what if his stupid face looks better when he doesn’t have a black eye!” Tom growled. “So what if it’s better when he doesn’t get hurt! He hates me, and I hate—ugh.”

* * *

“Feelings often change when new variables enter the equation,” Tom said one evening after a bone in Marco’s leg broke under the weight of one of Ludo’s men. The boy kept fighting, but from merely watching Tom could tell that every strike caused him an extreme amount of pain. Star was able to heal him, but only after hours of mastering the correct spell. Marco had insisted that she practice first. Something about a tentacle and some brat named Jeremy, Tom didn’t exactly understand the one sided conversation. His confusion did little to assuage the anger and guilt in his gut whenever he looked at Marco for the next few days.

* * *

“It’s not wrong if I just so happen to benefit out of this deal after all,” Tom assured himself when he realized he had been staring at Marco for much longer than he usually did. “I was _going_ to make a sacrifice for Star! The thought that I could have suffered should be enough!”

It hit him one day, when he laughed at one of Marco’s jokes even though he didn’t hear what Star said before, that he was incredibly envious of Star Butterfly for where she was in her life right now. He was even more envious of the mortal who had captured Marco’s heart.

(His envy grew with the proximity she got to Marco. It didn’t matter which girl.)

* * *

“Hope is a dangerous thing,” Tom told himself as Marco explained to Star that Tom couldn’t be completely evil because no one could be completely evil. Star’s response stopped Marco in his tracks, but his eyes didn't lose their fire and his jaw set itself in such a way that Tom knew Marco hadn’t given up on the idea (on _Tom_ ) just yet.

* * *

“O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!” Tom quoted only half sarcastically whenever Marco leaned his cheek on his hand in boredom, which was becoming more and more frequent as his Sophomore year went by and his teachers gradually cared less about their classes.

He sulked whenever Jackie Lynn Thomas smiled at Marco. His nightstand caught on fire when Marco smiled back.

* * *

“…I want to hold your stupid hand,” Tom muttered into his pillow, heart fluttering with both anger and nerves, trying to ignore the way Marco sputtered through conversations with Jackie Lynn Thomas and wishing at the same time that he was standing in Jackie Lynn Thomas’s place.

He wished she’d stop staring at him in Chemistry.  

* * *

Nearly a mortal year into studying Marco Diaz, Tom had a dream about the Blood Moon Ball.

Two mortal years had not erased a single detail from his mind about the night, but his memory and his imagination quickly began to blur.

He turned from the DJ to see Star and Marco dancing, but his fury, usually so potent, was no more than static in his ear. The whole ball caught fire, but the two didn’t stop dancing until the current song (the wrong song, his mind supplied) ended. His waltz began, and suddenly it wasn’t Star standing in front of Marco, it was Tom. Marco held out his hand, eyes dancing with delight beneath the mask, and Tom accepted it just as the waltz picked up.

Tom quickly fell into leading the dance while Marco followed willingly, moving his hand from Tom’s shoulder to take off the mask and let it fall to the floor.

“I was wondering when you were coming,” Marco said, a small smile playing at his lips, and Tom’s heart nearly melted in his chest. “To think, I almost danced with Star instead.”

Tom saw red, and whatever pitiful attempt his anger made at taking control away from him at the thought of Marco being with someone else was quickly felled as they danced under the light of the blood moon.

“Ah!” Marco said, his smile widening as he realized that they had been chosen, letting Tom dip him in the middle of the waltz.

Tom felt Marco’s fingers cling to his shirt, felt Marco’s quickening breath on his cheek, felt the beginnings of a bond form between them.

“You’re…so happy,” Tom said softly, feeling his hand shake despite Marco’s steady hold on it. “I can feel it.”

“It’s because I’m here with you,” Marco said, looking up at Tom.

Tom smiled back—it was such a delicate little thing, the precious seconds before a damn of emotions burst, and Tom cherished the moments he felt his happiness build and swell within him. Tom was nearly lightheaded at how quickly Marco’s words affected him, and leaned closer to Marco, pulling him closer.

“And can you tell what I’m feeling?” Tom whispered, closing his eyes and willing it so that Marco did.

He heard a light gasp. Marco held Tom’s hand tighter, pushed himself a little closer.

“I can,” Marco murmured, leaning into Tom’s chest and resting his head on the demon’s shoulder.

“And?” Tom asked, breaking them apart a little, eyes half open so he could see Marco’s expression under the red light.

Marco’s eyes were filled with such emotion that he was about to cry. His eyes were crinkled in the corners, cheeks puffy and red from exertion, but the smile on his face was so radiant that when Tom looked down, it was as if he was looking up at the sun itself.

“And I lo—”

Tom woke up and cursed his irregular sleep cycle.

* * *

“I’m touching that mortal’s hair if it’s the last damn thing I do,” Tom growled after a particularly annoying meeting about a border dispute.

It didn’t help that his next Marco based dream revolved around the mortal’s brown curls.

* * *

“I _really_ want to hold your stupid hand,” Tom groaned quietly in the middle of the night from under his palms. His dream had gotten him so happy that his eyes started glowing and he woke himself up by accident.

* * *

…

 

…

 

…

 

“I am so fucking screwed,” Tom hissed to himself, trying to keep his anger at bay when out of no where, Jackie Lynn Thomas—the wrong Tom—kissed Marco Diaz full on the lips in the Middle of his Junior year at Echo Creek Academy. He stopped watching before he lost control and found himself standing over the ashes of the girl and the blasted school she went to.

* * *

At some point, Tom realized that in order to make a deal, he couldn’t just crawl out of the ground and expect Marco to agree to his terms.

‘ _How am I supposed to get this kid to trust me enough to make a deal_?’ he thought over dinner. Thankfully, he was dining alone that evening, or his parents would have definitely been suspicious of his quiet reflection.

Marco spent most of his time either fighting Monsters, hanging out with Star, or at school. Star Butterfly was present in all three of these activities, but her influence was most felt in the first two. While they had shared almost all of their classes their Freshman and Sophomore years, Marco shared only about half of his classes with Star in his Junior year. They ate lunch on the days their schedules coincided. When Star wasn’t around, Marco sat with two particularly distasteful morons Tom hated with a passion. He’d rend their flesh from their bones for taking up Marco’s time if the very action wouldn’t isolate him from Marco’s trust forever.

Jackie Lynn Thomas was another issue by herself. Marco made time for her often, and the girl mostly wanted to skate or hang out with Marco in secluded areas after school. Tom didn’t like to think about her and what she did to Marco when they were alone; even without Brian, he knew it wasn't ‘conducive to a healthy lifestyle’.

Tom was absolutely thrilled and livid when she broke up with him on her own free will. Thrilled, for obvious reasons. Livid, because it crushed Marco. He didn’t watch it. When he found out, he ignored Marco for both of their benefits. He made plans to get Jackie Lynn Thomas out of the picture for good. He quickly discarded them; Marco would hate him for the evils he didn’t stop himself from committing.

Tom saw Marco finish up his Junior year, saw him sign up for electives, saw the relief on his face when the last day of school passed without trouble. 

* * *

The perfect solution (it was, coincidentally, the only solution) on how Tom would earn Marco’s trust revealed itself when Marco mentioned that he and Star were taking almost no classes together during their Senior year. Star wouldn’t be around as often to warn Marco against him if he spent time with Marco during his classes.

There was a slight setback to his plan. Star had, months ago, turned her passions toward combining the logic of technology with the flexibility and imagination of magic. Her projects were growing more and more complex as she upgraded Marco’s cell phone and added him to the Butterfly’s plan, created necklaces that could take them both back to the house if they ever got in trouble at the push of a button, and improved Marco’s car to such a degree it healed itself whenever Ludo or some other Monster destroyed it.

Unfortunately, Star’s newest project appeared to be a bracelet that doubled as a protective ward.

“Thanks, Star!” Marco chirped, inspecting the bracelet. “What does it do?”

Whatever Star said impressed Marco. His eyes widened and with little more than a quick explanation, Marco slid up the sleeve of his hoodie and slipped the bracelet on.

Tom cursed as his vision faded to black, and no matter how many times he tried, he couldn’t get a read on Marco again.

Tom lay back in his bed and sighed, less angry than he could have been.

He’d been observing Marco for a while now, and it had been a long time since it had been in a purely professional manor. He was a demon, and as such, he didn’t necessarily feel bad for the intrusion, but he recognized that Marco wouldn’t like it and resolved not to try to remove the warded bracelet in the future.

* * *

It had been two and a half mortal years since the Blood Moon Ball, and Tom was finally ready to break the bond that had started all of this.

Stepping out of the palace, Tom concentrated, trying to pick the most appropriate spot to ascend to Earth. A carriage ride and dimensional scissors would be easier, yes, but Tom wanted to fly, and more than that, he wanted to let out a bit of energy before he signed his soul away to the public educational system (which Marco had been continuously complaining about since this whole ordeal began).

Tom lifted himself off the ground and flew up past the burning trees and shrieking skeletons chained to the vast walls of the Underworld. It took some time to approach the sulfur ceiling. As Tom grew closer, he sped up, pushing out every last ounce of energy he could muster to make the climb as easy as possible, his eyes lighting as he propelled himself upwards.

With an audible clap, Tom broke through the sulfur and began pushing through the Earth’s core, the heat of the planet adding to his own power. He continued pushing, hour after hour, until eventually, he hit the mantle (making sure not to cause an earthquake), then bedrock, then dirt. He had been slowing down gradually, and when he was no more than five feet below the surface of the planet, he could go no slower without stopping completely, so he did. Tom pushed through those last five feet of dirt, digging through darkness, enjoying the feeling of dirt under his nails and exhaustion in his limbs.

He dug until he broke the surface and a single ray of moon light hit his third eye, contracting the pupil. Tom paused for a second to admire the fleetingness of that moment, where he was almost free of his earthly confines, and imagined how strange it would be if he never moved from this spot again. Would trees grow over him, or would he make everything wither and die around his alien presence? Would he eventually be uncovered, by wind or rain or man, or would he remain untouched until this planet met its destruction, the only immortal thing in a mortal world? Would it be painful, to just wait and wait until his problems solved themselves with the death of two people that Tom cared for but no longer knew? Or would time, like it always did, scar over all wounds, relieving the pain, but never the memory?

A cool breeze hit his face, and for a moment, he entertained the idea that he was feeling peaceful, like a gas burner on its lowest setting, flames gently lapping at a pot on a grate. It almost felt good, being so contained and docile, like this was the only place that it was assured he could do no harm. Tom closed his eyes and listened to the soft hum of nature in the witching hour.

How quiet it would be, if he waited here for Marco and Star Butterfly to die. He wouldn’t even have to hear the cheers of the Underworld, if he waited long enough. They wouldn’t blame him, wouldn’t even imagine that he could have saved them. Maybe Star would, but she wouldn’t tell Marco. He’d have died first if the two had truly been overwhelmed. 

At once, Tom had never felt so restricted, but he didn't move to escape his prison. He was inches from entering the Earth, inches from putting on a mask and accepting human norms as his own. There would be no more sugar lips, no more shrieking skulls, no more unicorn blood (or any blood at all). He was about to give himself up for some unknown amount of time to save two people he should hate.

How quiet it would be, kept company by the low din of the clearing, if he stayed in the earth forever. The animals would reject him when they saw him, but how would they know that this offspring of the Underworld, a demon ascending, was coming with a righteous purpose? His nature would scare them away before he could even try to calm them, and even if they didn't flee, the mistrust in their eyes would tell him they would never accept him, not as he was, a being of hellfire and wrath. They would never lay eyes on him if he never entered the world.

How quiet it would be, if he pretended he was part of the earth, a seed that never germinated, and let time crawl passed him. Kingdoms could rise and fall, and he would never know it if he never moved again.

How quiet it would be if he just

  

gave

 

them

 

up.

 

Tom’s eyes shot open, beams of light in a dark place. Tom roared, a violent and ugly bellow that he felt in his chest as he burst from the ground, fire blazing around him. He could see steam rising from his eyes, but he didn’t care—Tom exploded into the quiet little forest he had ascended into and burned it down, letting his anger boil and bubble over until he could seethe no more.

Tom stopped the fire instantly and floated amongst the carnage. The quiet of the little clearing had been decimated and a hole had been left in its wake. Nothing made a sound; no tree creaked, no bird’s wing beat, no ant took a single step. The auditory void soothed Tom like nothing else had ever been able to. Near his exit point was a heavily burnt tree; Tom grounded himself near it and sat on its charred bark.

The Prince of the Underworld listened to nothing for hours and found he quite preferred it to the soft chatter of a world repulsed by the notion of creation from rebirth—of good born from fire.

 


	2. Maundy Thursday

Tom spent the days before he was to start school wandering. He used to visit Earth frequently, but the last time he had been on the planet for more than a few days at a time was centuries ago. As such, adjusting to how quickly the world had changed after being relatively stagnant for so long was a challenge.

Humans were unusually uncanny amongst sentient beings because of their ability to sense the slightest discrepancy within each other; it was widely believed to be because they evolved from more primitive beings that needed to be able to quickly and accurately judge a potential threat as friend or foe. To see a being as foreboding as he didn’t just raise their hackles, it frightened them into falling back into their base instincts. The only reason they didn’t actively flee when they saw him coming was that they were _civilized_ and it was logically ridiculous to run from an unknown being if said being wasn’t acting overtly threatening towards them.

Most people still left him alone, either for his looks or for the unnerving screaming in the back of their heads that told them to avoid confrontation at all costs. Only the stupidest mortals would approach him willingly; the rest did so out of necessity and kept their conversations with him as short and concise as possible. Although Tom didn’t know it, he had received the best service at every chain restaurant he had visited in the history of each company’s conception.

It was obvious that humans normally didn’t treat each other as well as they were treating Tom, and it was glaringly obvious that they only treated him better out of fear. It hadn’t been much different in the past, except that mortals had better poker faces back then. He knew his demeanor wasn’t helping him fit in—amongst strangers, he acted like a prince should, or at least what demons felt a prince should act like—he was fluid and deliberate with his actions, practically radiating power. He wanted them to grovel; they were hardly worthy of his time, but they were simultaneously the most worthy of his time while he waited to begin wooing Marco.  

His opinion of humans was hard for him to grasp sometimes, if he was honest with himself. They were stupid and brilliant and kind and barbaric—and a thousand other things, all rolled up into frustratingly fragile little balls of emotion—and Tom loved and hated (and envied?) them for their mercurial nature.

His time before school started was a chance to get to learn more about present day humans without being distracted by Marco or Star, and he realized that was squandering it by acting like a demon. Tom knew that he was being stupid, that he could learn a lot from watching humans interact without being fearful of his presence, but the petulant part of him didn’t care that he could show up and amaze Marco with his perfect knowledge of Earth’s customs. If the only way to learn about humanity was from the spineless, normal humans living out their lives like novels that barely made authors enough money to continue writing, than he would rather be ignorant.

He wasn’t lowering himself in the process of acquiring knowledge for some random mortals he would probably never see again, and they would simply have to put up with being a little uneasy whenever he passed by.

(He wanted Marco to teach him what being a modern day mortal meant, and he looked forward to Marco fussing and worrying over his actions. Over him. He’d rather Marco censor him than have to do it himself.)

* * *

The days passed by achingly slowly, and Tom found himself bored most of the time. He didn’t need to sleep nearly as often as humans, but he found himself lounging for more and more time with each passing day.

The heat of summer felt wonderful, but Tom hated the oppressive humidity that came with it. He could feel it crawl into his nose and throat and try to choke him early in the day, and it settled on his skin in a way that made him irritable in the afternoon. It was heat, but the wrong _kind_ of heat; the water in the air might have been hot, but it was fundamentally still water, the element most opposite to him and most abundant on Earth.

If it had been pure, it might have been bearable, but this water was polluted, filled with salt and plastic and metal that clung to him if he didn’t burn it off his skin when it was too intolerable. He made the mistake of lighting himself on fire in public only once. He was very proud that he didn’t kill anyone, but his reaction to being unexpectedly doused was not one of his shining moments.

* * *

He found out that he liked to watch time pass in the interim of things.

The Underworld was always the same monotony—a torturous hellscape that thrived on the pain of all, which Tom certainly enjoyed, of course—but the Earth was filled with constant, ceaseless change. It was fascinating to be able to watch time march on as the sun rose and woke some forgotten little meadow up in the morning. The Underworld didn’t have wind; grime and soot wafted through every window and was all-pervading in his life below the surface. There were so many different scents to discover, sights to see, before the sun dipped low and finally vanished from view that Tom could scarcely believe it at times.

The flora blew Tom away. The Underworld had trees in the same way that it had everything else—dead or undead, and more likely than not, on fire. The color green was beautiful—easily Tom’s favorite. And it was everywhere! Tom liked exploring and found that the beauty on Earth was so intense it made him feel like he was going to explode from the joy of being near it.

He found that when he was so calm he barely breathed, animals would approach him. They never got within reaching distance—and Tom didn’t want to touch them—but they would watch him, and he, them. It was only when he moved that they got skittish, suddenly realizing what they were looking at and bolting into the brush. It was like everything else on this planet—fleeting, but exhilarating.

* * *

The vast openness of the sky above stopped all thoughts, and for a terrifying moment, Tom pondered how he could possibly deserve to exist in tandem with such immeasurable beauty. To the West, the dying sun echoed the sentiment with its retreat past the horizon.

As he escaped the sky’s greedy clutches with his prize, Apollo let splashes of warm color slip through his fingers, let the last beams of the day make one final, brilliant rainbow to appease the sky: rich oranges and vibrant pinks and yellows made Tom want to set the world on fire and simultaneously never set fire to anything again.

The sunset was an offering, one Apollo made every eve, Tom imagined, in order to slip the life giver from the sky’s insatiable grip, to ease the journey from day to night. There was never transition without sacrifice, Apollo believed, and Tom agreed as he watched the sky writhe and shift to fill in the void the sun's magnificence used to touch. 

The trees, however, were of the same opinion as the sky; they too desired and clung to the last of the light. It silhouetted them, made the radiant lining that framed them look like a halo. Their efforts were in vain. Apollo hadn’t lost a fight since this war began and he didn’t intend to lose one today.

There were other battles raging along the glade Tom was in. He stood; now he was too excited by his surroundings to do anything else but bear witness to the silent skirmish he had stumbled across. The night’s chill was slowly encroaching on the warmth the sun labored all day to provide. The crisp, clean air filled him with vigor, demanding his full attention like the shout of the surliest of commanding officers. 

The glade had tucked itself next to a river a thousand years ago, and though the sleepy little dell had remained untouched for centuries, it had paradoxically been the battlefield for a conflict centered on change, on transition. The glade, though always in a state of constant motion, had and would eternally be just a glade. A battle was fought, and then there is silence until Apollo strikes his lyre again. The sound resonates like trumpets of war, and the battle begins anew in tandem to the changing from day to night, and night to day.

The waves of an approaching scow lapped gently at the sand bed near the foot of a creek that wrapped around the glade. The slow, rhythmic swell of the water was the sweetest war drum Tom had ever heard.

Inexplicably, Tom was thrown back to earlier times, to rich red sands, to snow so white it blinded Tom when he looked at it. To adopting a guise and slipping into humanity, to enjoying the experiences and scenes around him for what they were: perfection itself. Old faces, now long dead, brought Tom’s attention onto themselves and agonized him with their presence.

He hadn’t thought about the people he had left behind in centuries. It was crushing to see them again, if only from the sketchy recollection he had of them. Their smiling faces, their eyes, so full of life…it made him both yearn for those times and crave new memories he would inevitably push to the back of his mind one day.

Tom sat. The glade was no longer a place, but an experience. The cool air carried with it the forest’s smell, and wildflower nectar was nearly cloying when Tom tasted it on his tongue from right off of the breeze. He watched Apollo retreat a step at a time, pulling the sun with him and with that, the offering dimmed and blended with the quiet shades of night.

Tom feel raw, sitting in the glade. Unformed. Here, he was heat and vibrant color, singing and triumph, energy and rebirth. The glade brought him back to the beginning, to simpler times, and made him feel new. Made him feel whole. Made him wish he could share this with others. With someone.

In this moment, he was possibility. Opportunity. Free.

In the coolness of dusk, now full of memories and scents and dreams, it had been a long time since Tom had felt so alive.

* * *

From time to time across dimensions, a pair of scissors would be misplaced or stolen, and the consequences differed depending on who found the scissors and where they went.

Dimensional scissors weren’t the easiest thing to get a hold of, but enough existed that they wound up in the wrong hands somewhat frequently.

The humans of old had created spells, or artifacts, or at least knew that there was evil that they needed to defend themselves against. They were powerful, even with their passive magic, and ruthless to boot. If a being from another dimension even showed its face to them, it would be mobbed and beaten to a pulp before it could even ask to be taken to a midlevel manager at the local bakery, let alone an actual leader.

It was surprising how well the humans of old had held their own against other beings. It was lucky that so many creatures in the universe that might want to snack on Earth’s inhabitants were unable to handle direct contact with salt, or flinched at iron, or else were completely terrified at the concept of divine intervention by a God that _must_ be real, if their worshipers were so adamant about its existence.

(The Crusades had accidentally stopped three invasions in the stages of their infancy from the sheer terror their religious fervor struck the invading generals with. Interest in Earth was thought of as suicidal by other beings for centuries afterwards, and many held the opinion to this day.)

Tom learned very quickly that modern humans were laughably inept at dealing with other beings.

He was finishing a light lunch in a city on the east coast of North America when an unearthly screech shattered the window he was looking out of—ruining a perfectly good daydream in the process and putting Tom in a foul mood. He stood and paid for his meal, throwing a few extra dollars on the table as he always did when he learned that it was customary to tip a server for their efforts.

As he passed them by, he ignored the humans scrambling around the diner and left the restaurant. Another screech, and Tom recognized the sound—an orc was loose in the city.

It was rare that an orc found a pair of scissors, and even rarer that one would chose to come to Earth, a planet known for being vastly segregated, vastly xenophobic, needlessly cruel, and in a near permanent state of conflict. In living memory, demons were the only culture that truly loved the planet and its people—it was just the right blend of exotic and familiar. Earth had no truly precious resources and the people tended to be both better equipped to handle a fight and smarter than most of the beings that would want to visit; as such, until it was deemed capable of handling the idea that it would have to play nice with an infinite amount of dimensions, Earth was mostly left alone.

It was an order straight from the Council’s mouth—humans were too volatile to interact with, and a mere sighting could set off an event that could lead to interplanetary disaster.

If Tom were from any other dimension, he’d be in an enormous amount of trouble for coming to a hostile planet without permission, but the Council dealt with the Underworld a bit… _differently_ , in regards to dimensional travel.

Sharp thuds echoed through the city, too sharp to be the dull thud of the axe that all self-respecting orcs carried around. It must have been gunfire. When he recognized the sound of bullets flying, Tom hesitated, his curiosity piqued. Tom had never seen a gun before, only heard stories and seen memories of people using them in battle. They were the most fearsome thing humanity had created en masse—a weapon so efficient that it changed how war on the planet was waged. Tom grimaced, fighting with himself for a moment.

If he went to look at the weapons the humans were using, he would have to interfere; he really disliked orcs, and seeing one would more than likely make him want to end it. He would probably try to talk it down, just to keep the humans from completely freaking out on him afterwards, but if it didn’t leave peacefully, Tom was more than happy—in fact, probably too happy—to smear the streets in its blood. He'd try to be cordial, if only to make interacting with humans easier afterwards.

However, there was always the Committee of Interdimensional Travel to contend with, a subcommittee of the Council itself. Tom wouldn’t be punished for being on Earth unannounced, but there was a chance that they would see him and unwanted attention would be brought on Tom’s presence on the planet. He wanted to lay low so he could finish his business on Earth without raising anyone’s attention, but another round of fire flew, and so did Tom’s self-restraint.

He propelled himself up over the skyscrapers to see where the orc had appeared, and where the humans were trying to shoot it down.

After several seconds of quiet in which Tom scanned the skyline, a building caught aflame a few blocks over and the guns chuckled in response; Tom grinned and headed towards it.

He landed off to the side in between the humans and the orc, taking in the scene before him.

The humans had set up a perimeter that was steadily being pushed back by the oncoming orc. Their weapons did very little, if anything, to the thick skinned Monster, and Tom could hear their cries of fear whenever the orc threw something at them. It made sense, that they were losing; orcs needed thick skin to absorb the blows from their infighting for food and spouses. Several of the armed humans had already seen him—Tom could hear them screaming about him flying in from the sky—but they continued to focus on the great beast coming towards them, the perceived greater evil at the time.

The humans continued firing when the orc threw a bench at them, continued fighting when it hit one of their own and dented his head in. One was screaming orders, trying to divide her attention between crowd control and killing the threat. Despite their best efforts (and more ammunition than Tom could have possibly imagined) the orc was still stumbling towards them, weapons still drawn. Even bullets that pierced its oozing green eyes were no more than annoyances to the Monster.

Tom frowned. The weakest magic they had would bring the beast to its knees, but humans were so out of touch with their roots that they couldn’t even pause what their ancestors could obliterate with the right rune. Tom sighed and seized up his new enemy, preparing to step in before the beast got to the humans and broke the reason he had for coming at all.

The orc was smaller than most, only about fifteen feet tall, and in one hand it had its pair of dimensional scissors; the other three hands carried weapons of various design and make. Its screaming was beginning to give him a headache, and Tom was in an even worse mood now that he had been disillusioned by humanity and forced to look at the ugly brute.

Fire curling around his shoes, Tom stomped out into the bullets, wincing when they kissed and occasionally licked his skin. He’d heal from anything, but pain was still a very real thing for him, and he avoided it as much as he could.

“What are you doing,” Tom demanded, and his presence shocked the orc into closing its rotting mouth.

The orc studied Tom for several seconds, seizing the demon in front of it up, weighing the odds it had in a fight between them. It might not know him, but orcs knew demons. More specifically, orcs knew demons killed orcs with a smile on their face and a pep in their step.

Behind him, the humans stopped firing, and Tom could hear them tittering and whispering to each other, asking if they should shoot both he and the orc. Tom sincerely hoped they didn’t pick a fight with him; it wouldn’t end well.

“Get out of here before I get mad,” Tom growled, lifting up a hand and letting fire pour out of it. “Orc hide makes great light armor, and your race burns so easily under my flames.”

The orc’s pointed ears almost deflated, and Tom could practically feel the unease of the creature before him. With a flick of his wrist, the fire rapidly burning up the building next to them went out, and Tom sneered up at the now quivering orc.

“Unless,” Tom said, watching flames play between his fingers, “you’d like to try your luck?”

The orc held Tom’s gaze for several seconds, and it bodily flinched at the rage and eagerness it saw in Tom’s eyes.

The wisest thing the orc ever did was turn around and leave the dimension in peace.

The dumbest thing Tom ever did was to turn around to try to walk away from the scene.

Bullets ripped him apart—the humans weapons hadn’t fazed the orc, but Tom’s skin wasn’t as thick as the beast’s. He growled in annoyance, but tried not to let himself get too upset. They were just as stupid as the orc, albeit in different ways.

“I’m not going to attack you,” Tom said, wincing as his skin knitted itself together as it expelled the bullets.

“Hands where I can see them!” one of the humans screamed, weapon raised and trained on Tom.

Being nice was getting very annoying, very quickly. Marco probably wouldn’t like that he didn't like being nice sometimes.

So Tom obliged him, raising his arms above his head with an eye roll. As an afterthought, he cut the fire flowing out of his hand.

Three humans approached him very slowly, each dressed in uniform—Tom’s mind wondered for a moment and he thought of how wonderful he and Marco would look in matching outfits. The brief thought put him in a considerably better mood, so much so that he allowed the humans to grab his hands and cuff them behind his back.

“You are under arrest for potential conspiracy and domestic terrorism. You have the right to remain silent. If you do say anything, it can be used against you in a court of law,” one officer said, reading Tom his rights. Tom stopped listening to him, more interested in testing the strength of the cuffs.

“Humans—uh, people can’t break these, can they?” Tom asked one of the humans standing near him, who was watching him with thinly veiled terror on her face. He pulled at the cuffs slightly, and they snapped. “Whoops, sorry.”

The humans reacted predictably: they screamed and yelled until he put his hands up again and they put two pairs of cuffs on his wrists.

He was led towards one of the cars with the flashing lights and asked to sit in the back. Tom shrugged and obliged them again, reasoning that his schedule was free for another few weeks and he might as well get to know humanity a bit better, even if they were being ridiculous and somewhat annoying at the moment. The humans kept the back separated from the front with a cage, which was strange to Tom—what good would a cage do to contain a being that just stole the fire from an entire building?

It took several minutes for the humans to decide who was going to drive, and to Tom’s utter delight, the scrawniest, youngest human of the bunch was chosen to transport him wherever the uniformed humans wanted him to be.

Tom watched with interest as the others gathered around him and one of them put something in his jacket’s inner pocket before zipping it up. The woman in charge was staring at him so intensely while she spoke to him that Tom was sure he would faint before he managed to bring Tom wherever the humans wanted him.

Shaking like a leaf, the young man got into the car, fumbling with his keys until pushed the key into the ignition and the car roared to life. Tom let the man worry and titter to himself; he encouraged it, in fact. He let the car grow warmer, let the human catch sight of his third eye and fangs, let tendrils of fire lick his teeth instead of his tongue. Marco would rather him not kill people, and it was so much easier to keep himself in a good mood when he was in control of the situation.

The young man looked back and put the car in reverse, unintentionally making eye contact with Tom in the process. The fear mingled with his determination in such a way that Tom found himself more amused by the situation than anything else.

The man shifted into drive and swiftly turned a corner.

“What are you?” he stuttered when they stopped at a light.

“Demon,” Tom replied, letting a hand disconnect from his body and gently touch the cage separating the two.

“Where are you from?”

“That’s a bit complicated. Not here.”

The man shifted uneasily, now aware of the hand. “Were you responsible for the monster that appeared in Time Square?”

Tom sat in silence for about a minute. The young man didn’t push him for anymore answers, more than likely afraid as to what the response might me.

“Hey,” Tom said out of the blue, and the human driving cringed and nearly veered into a taxi.

“Shit!” he moaned, meeting Tom’s eyes through the rear-view mirror. “Warn a guy next time?”

“What’s your name, human?” Tom asked, tracing the cage with a finger.

“Please don’t touch the barrier,” the human whimpered. Tom delighted in it.

“Is that a weird name for a human?” Tom asked. “I don’t know many. Do you know Marco Diaz?”

“Never heard of him,” the human said, fingers tapping nearly uncontrollably against the wheel. The choking presence in the car had lessened considerably at the mention of the man, but was steadily building itself back up. The man, a hypothesis forming, asked,

“Is he from around here?”

“Hm? Marco?” Tom asked, snapping out of a daydream. “Fortunately, no. He’d hate it here. Too crowded.”

“Does he know about, er…monsters and stuff?” the man asked, eyes straight ahead. Tom reconnected his hand and sat forward.

“Yeah, he does,” Tom said. “He’s pretty good at fighting them off. Much better than you, anyway, and he’s half your age!”

“He sounds impressive,” the man said, letting his voice ooze sincerity.

Tom sighed. “He really is,” he said wistfully, falling into another daydream.

Silence picked back up in the vehicle, and the man, very aware of the relaxed atmosphere in the car, glanced at Tom every so often and noted the faraway look on his face as he traced the grate behind the man’s head.

“I’m Tom,” Tom said, finger still following the metal behind the human’s head. “I forgot my manners.”

“Tom?” the human gaped. “Your name is _Tom_?”

“Something wrong with my name, mortal?” Tom growled, good mood quickly fading. As if _Please Don’t Touch The Barrier_  of all humans had the right to comment on someone else’s name.

“I thought you’d be called Deathfire or Peoplemurderer or something,” the human said quickly. “Tom’s a little anti-climactic, don’t you think?”

“ _Please Don’t Touch The Barrier is a shitty name and your parents hated you from the moment you left your mother’s womb, don’t you think_?” Tom snapped.

“My name’s Jaron,” the human said, sounding bewildered. “Please don’t touch the barrier. And I’m sorry; I just wasn’t expecting someone so _strong_ to have such a…  _relatable_ name.”

“Jaron,” Tom said, leaning back in his seat and testing the name while he let the last prickles of praise wash over him.

“Yeah,” Jaron said, eyes trained on Tom. “You pronounced it well.”

Tom thought back for a moment.

“It’s Hebrew, isn’t it?” he asked. Jaron startled.

“Yeah,” he said, and the whimper in his voice was hardly present now. “My mother is from Jordan, though. How do you know?”

“I’ve been,” Tom said. “Although it wasn’t called Jordan then. And then when I went back, it was.”

Jaron didn’t react to the comment. “So…Tom. You never told me if you brought that thing to the city. Did you?”

Tom let silence pass long enough for Jaron to startle when Tom spoke again.

“Where are we going, Jaron?” Tom asked.

Jaron winced.

“Uh…the police station?” he said.

“Why?”

“…because we think you could be a terrorist?”

“If I was terrorizing you, you’d probably know it,” Tom said lightly.

“I was feeling pretty terrorized,” Jaron admitted. “With the whole fire and flying around and threatening to wear the skin of your enemies thing.”

Tom snorted, a grin on his face. “Orcs are hardly worth calling enemies. They’re too stupid to engage in warfare, too cowardly to take on a fair opponent, and too vulnerable to magic to be a threat to most worlds. Earth is an exception these days.”

“Lucky you were around then,” Jaron praised weakly. “We’d have died without you. You mentioned magic?”

Tom perked up. “You really would have died?” he asked.

Jaron nodded enthusiastically, switching tactics.

“Besides feeling terrorized, I was also feeling pretty amazed. Is it hard to control fire? Or magic? Was the—orc, was it under your control?”

Tom grinned. “Not really,” he said. “I was the first elemental demon born in four thousand years, and since then, I’m the only one whose ever had dominion over fire. I practiced on orcs all the time, back when they were annoying the Underworld. Can’t stand the things. Lucky it backed down, otherwise you’d probably be wiping its blood off your window right now. Can't say I wouldn't have minded a fight.”

Jaron shuddered, but kept talking. “Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of things over the years, but never something as awesome as how you handled that orc. How did it even get here? One second everything was calm, the next…chaos!”

Tom’s smile widened. “The best answer I could give you without breaking the Council’s orders would be that it found a semi-rare way to go dimension hopping that, thanks to said Council’s overbearing presence in most dimensions, probably won’t happen again. But you never know.”

Jaron looked back again in the mirror to check on Tom, fingers gripping the wheel tightly.

“A Council?” he asked. “Someone is in charge of the thing that you beat?”

“More in charge of portal hopping and interplanetary visitation than individuals, but in this capacity, it is the ruling body on all dimensional scissor users, so technically the Council has jurisdiction over the fate of the orc.”

“Um…We’re just glad…thankful, even—that you got it to leave before it hurt anyone else,” Jaron said quietly, not even bothering to puzzle out what Tom had just said. He'd let his superiors wonder about the logistics. 

“You’re welcome,” Tom said.

More silence.

“Did you use those scissors you were talking about to come to Earth. From the Underworld, was it?” Jaron asked.

“Not this time,” Tom said. “You can’t have my pair, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Jaron shook his head. “Absolutely not! I just know my team is going to be…curious, to say the least, about how you got that thing to leave, and where it went. I was hoping to be able to explain it to some of my…more volatile peers.”

Tom laughed at the idea of a human not being volatile. “I heard the orc scream, I gave it the choice to bathe in its own blood or live to see another day, I got shot at and put in your tiny little car, and we are currently chatting. I’m sure your angry little friends can handle that.”

Jaron laughed, an awkward lit to it. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“Not really,” Tom said. “I don’t even see why you need me at all. I should leave and let you focus on your duties or whatever it is you do around here.”

“No, we really need you!” Jaron said quickly. “You can’t leave! You’re…you’re a hero! They need to talk to you, get your side of the story to put it in the paper! Your fri-Marco would love seeing that!”

Tom's face froze, and for a moment Jaron thought that he was shocked that someone would call him a hero. Then, like a record suddenly cracking in the middle of playing a song, Tom’s smile cut through his face, taught and wide, revealing a couple more teeth than it had before.

“Of course he would,” he said. The choking presence that had been gone from the car hit Jaron harshly, and he involuntarily inhaled.

“What is your and Marco’s relationship even like? Is he a good friend, a best friend? Or…”

“It’s very rude, to pry into someone else’s life, is it not, Jaron?” Tom asked. “And here I assumed your parents taught you manners.”

Jaron’s shoulder’s tensed.

“I didn’t mean to pry. I’m just curious,” he quickly backtracked. “You swoop in and save the day, and now I get a chance to talk with you? I’ve got questions, man. Like, you mentioned something about dimensions. What dimension are you from? And how many are there?”

Tom nearly growled, “Every other dimension in existence has agreed that Earth is too twitchy to be informed on these manners. I wouldn’t be surprised if you ‘forgot’ all about this incident yourself. Your parents would certainly be surprised, however, if their little boy suddenly disappeared one day. Knowledge can be dangerous, eh Jaron? Sucks you came across some by mistake.”

Jaron audibly swallowed. “Yeah, it can be. But it’s also enlightening, and it makes things a lot less scary for people. If you can do magic, can other beings do magic? Are there humans that can perform magic?”

Tom’s smile was frosty. “Humans can’t do magic, idiot. You all rid yourself of that trait hundreds of years ago. Rather pathetic, in a way; you called it evil, but without it, your species would have never made it as far as you have.”

Jaron’s jaw clicked shut.

“Sorry,” he said quietly, “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Fuck off, Jaron.”

“We’re almost to the station,” Jaron said, meeting Tom’s eyes in the rear-view mirror again, trying to ignore the hatred brewing in them. “Could you please treat them as well as you’ve treated me?”

Tom sneered as Jaron stopped the car, more baring his teeth than anything else.

“I’ll give them all the respect they deserve.”

Jaron hesitated in opening Tom’s door, and Tom kicked it wide open the second Jaron pulled the handle. The force of the door hitting his stomach briefly winded Jaron, but he refused to say anything as he led Tom towards the station. When he searched Tom, he didn’t wince as his hands quickly burned at the contact. When he fingerprinted Tom, he didn’t get rough and yell when Tom’s fingers burned everything they touched. When Tom asked for a drink of water when Jaron cuffed him to a table and then ‘accidentally’ spilled it, all Jaron did was leave the barren room and return with a mop and a refill.

“I’m really very sorry I offended you,” Jaron said when the water was dried and Tom emptied his cup again, this time in his mouth. “Please don’t let my actions reflect on my fellow officers.”

“Fuck off, Jaron,” Tom growled, and Jaron, looking conflicted, left Tom alone in the interrogation room.

* * *

Officer Lee Edwards had been with the NYPD for twenty-three years and was feeling every hour of his career.

He had been on-scene when the Monster had appeared in the middle of Time Square and had been evacuating civilians behind the perimeter. He had seen something shoot towards the Monster over his head, but it would have been unprofessional to do anything more than acknowledge its presence and continue working, so he put it out of his mind until he found out he was going to be interrogating it.

“This is bullshit like I’ve never seen here, son,” Edwards said to the station’s newest recruit, a young Californian with a Masters in Criminal Psychology.

The young man nodded quickly. Edwards had seen more than his fair share of new additions, and there was something to be said for how poorly they always managed to hide both their fear and desire for recognition. Young officers wanted to prove themselves in the worst way, and Edwards was about to see if the officer in front of him, who had promptly volunteered to take the suspect to the station and interrogate him on the way, was a cut above the rest or merely another mediocre, big fish suddenly thrown from a small pond into the ocean type of talent. Assignments that required delicacy like this often separated the two.

“Remind me of your name and tell me what you observed after detaining the suspect,” Edwards began, setting his coffee down in between stacks of papers that never seemed to diminish on his desk no matter how often he worked on them. He knew perfectly well who Jaron Davis was, but he wanted to see the man's reaction to the question.

The new recruit, back stiff and eyes glittering, answered without an ounce of resentment.

“My name is Jaron Davis, sir. The being that we detained calls himself Tom and believes he’s not human, based off of the recording we have of the conversation. I personally believe that he is not human, and the implications of that are both astounding and uncomfortable. Tom has horns, fangs, three eyes, and a slew of other characteristics that make the argument towards his humanity laughably incomplete on its own. His pyrotechnical abilities and seeming immortality make the argument even weaker, if we assume that he was honest with me. We filled him up with bullets and he walked away from it, so regardless, there is merit to the idea. We are, of course, operating under the assumption that humanity has not discovered a way to immediately put out a burning building, so outside help is severely unlikely and Tom appears to actually be what he is. It is unnerving to be in his presence, but I believe that he likes to be verbally praised. I also believe that towards the end of our conversation, he understood that my praise was not sincere and regressed into the more hostile character that caused so much unnecessary trouble through the identification process we put him through.”

“Do you really believe that that creature that spilled its water did it because he was upset that you didn’t think he was brave?” Edwards asked. “Is this thing really just some pouty teenager with a fire control that would make an arsonist piss himself?”

Jaron shifted across the desk.

“I wouldn’t call him a pouty teenager so much as a teenager, sir,” Jaron said. “If he is to be believed, he knew Jordan before Jordan knew itself. Perhaps maturity wise, he is a teenager, but if he is as old as he says, he has experienced far too much for us to just label him a teenager and be done with it.”

“Then what would you label him, Davis?”

Jaron shifted again.

“I think he is fundamentally misunderstood or unappreciated by people he cares for or looks up to. His reaction to my praising his abilities was abnormally cooperative and responsive, almost like he craves positive attention. On a side note, Tom did mention someone I believe could be affecting his desire for kind acknowledgment. A young man named Marco Diaz.”

“Marco Diaz?” Edwards asked. “Shit, he would have a name like that. There’s got to be hundreds of Marco Diazs in New York alone!”

“This Diaz is a young man, possibly still in school,” Jaron said. “He does not live in the city, and probably not the state, either.”

Edwards grimaced and sent himself a quick e-mail with the little information Jaron gathered from Tom and the promise to search for a Marco Diaz who could possibly fit the profile after he interviewed Tom. He wouldn’t be going home early tonight, that was for sure.

“We’ll find him later,” Edwards said. “What about the monster, Davis? The one he just made go away?”

“Tom says that it’s called an orc and its weakness is magic of any kind,” Jaron said, remembering Tom’s sneer when the topic of magic was breached in the car. “A snap of his fingers and the thing is gone. It valued its life and left.”

“I was there, Davis,” Edwards snapped. “I want to know if, in your professional opinion, the thing in your car was lying about the monster being gone.”

Jaron looked decisively uncomfortable now. “He said that the pair of scissors in its hand could take it anywhere and seemed pretty confident that it wouldn’t be back. I don’t think Tom is a good liar, sir. He seems too short tempered to be able to carry out long, complicated schemes. I very much doubt the orc is coming back.”

“Is he insane, Davis?” Edwards pressed.

“Not likely, sir,” Jaron answered. “A bit jumbled, but I believe the cause of that is being simultaneously unfamiliar and distasteful of humans. He kept on looking around the car, and his eyes were noticeably on my firearm at some points. I think he’s curious about us, which currently overrides anything he doesn’t like about the situation.”

Edwards sat back, thinking hard. If Tom couldn’t lie well, and if Tom wasn’t crazy, there remained the possibility that Tom was telling the truth. That magic was real and that different dimensions were in contact with each other fairly often, if the whole Council of Interplanetary Whatever existed in Tom’s mind. Which only begged the question:

“Is that thing…Tom, in control of himself, Davis?” Edwards asked. “Can he be reasoned with? Is there a good side to even appeal to?”

“Tom seems to be in control, for the most part,” Jaron replied, eyes on the floor. Interrogation Room Two, the room Tom had been placed in, was directly below them, and it seemed…crass, to be talking about someone so personally while they were so close. “I genuinely believe that when he is not angry, he is in control and can be reasoned with. Something a little more potent than reason might be needed if he’s angry. A positive association, or else a way to remove the offending object or subject.”

“But is there any good in him, Davis?” Edwards asked, leaning forward. “I need to know. I heard the recording you took, and it's eating me up inside. If something pisses him off and he snaps, that’s one thing. But putting yourself near something that pisses you off because you wanted to snap is a whole different ball game, and I can’t tell which one Tommy here chose to do.”

Jaron paused. Edward’s patience evaporated.

“Is the son of a bitch going to murder us all for shits and giggles, Jaron, or is there a reason to not put the bastard down right now?” he yelled. “I don’t care what it takes; if he’s a monster no worse than the one that left, then one way or another, I’m sending him back to hell!”

A low thud sounded beneath them, and both men jumped. Around them, other officers fell silent, hands lingering on their weapons, wondering if they would need them. Rumors and gossip was spreading fast, and Edwards and Davis hadn’t been speaking quietly about the monster below their feet.

Silence reigned, and nothing happened.

Jaron sighed in relief and let his hand fall from his side. Behind his desk, Edwards unclenched his hands.

“Sir, I think that there isn’t any—”

Next to Edwards, the floor exploded by their feet, sending flecks of dry dust and shards of tile flying across the room. Jaron’s eyes watered as he covered his nose and threw himself to the floor, a second behind Edwards.

Behind them, screaming flooded the station as a figure crawled out of the large hole in the floor from the same spot Interrogation Room Two was under. Jaron, from behind the desk, couldn’t see how angry Tom was, only feel the room burn and desperately wipe at his eyes.

“I’m sick of all of you pitiful little dogs,” Tom growled to his right. Jaron put his weight heavily on the desk, trying to hide himself. “Especially you, Jaron.”

Jaron screamed as the desk he had been leaning heavily on was swiped against his back, tearing his uniform and stabbing him with the splintering wood on what was Edward’s welcome present on his first day in New York. Tom had kicked it out of his way.

Jaron fell to his side, his back in agony, now fumbling desperately for his gun. Tears were pouring from his face.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” he gasped, finally undoing the buckle. He pulled out his gun, but Tom ripped it from his hands before he could flick off the safety.

“I trusted you, you little shit,” Tom barked. His eyes were glowing so intensely that they burned to look at. “I even _liked_ you! And this is what you do? You call me names? You debate if I’m evil? You _threaten_ me?”

Tom knelt down in front of Jaron, ignoring the bullets Edwards was frantically unloading into his back, ignoring the panic he had incited around him. No. Not ignoring.

Reveling in.

“Tell me, Jaron,” Tom murmured, fire curling around his horns in the mockings of a halo, “am I evil?”

Jaron felt a whine escape the back of his throat and tried to shuffle back, but Tom pressed against his ankle, holding him in place.

“I asked you a _question_ , Jaron,” Tom hissed, claws digging into the meat of Jaron's leg. “One you were about to answer anyway. Let’s hear it. And will you _stop shooting me_?”

Tom flicked his hand back at Edwards and fire threw him to the wall. He grinned—a feral, nasty, thing that made Jaron want to run or faint or even die to escape it.

“I don’t know,” Jaron whispered. “I didn’t think so. But now I don’t know.”

Tom’s grin widened.

“Well, let me remove all doubt from that _brilliant_ little brain of yours.”

A terrible, glorious rebirth occurred.


	3. Reunions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't thank the people who left me reviews these past months after it was clear I wasn't really writing enough. Your faith inspired me to keep it up, and I can only hope that you're happy with the results. Please note that there are some graphic depictions of violence in this chapter.

It was on the news.

Tom had taken to walking in the mornings after the orc incident, wanting the fresh air, and he had noticed something new about humanity that hadn't been true last time he had visited Earth.

Televisions were everywhere. And humans _loved_ them. They hung them on buildings. In restaurants. Subway stations. Sometimes they were at gas station pumps or crowded between books in libraries.

It was something that Tom had radically mixed feelings about. On the one hand, he liked the easy spread of information, the bright colors and the simplicity of learning it provided. On the other hand, humans were fucking annoying, and television was _full_ of them, from the glimpses he’d seen walking past open restaurants and large displays the past three days.

It was certainly strange, to be walking to clear his head when each day he was assaulted by so much chatter it was almost oppressive.

One of those televisions hung in a small café called _Pythia’s_ —the name struck him as a little old, for such a modern place— which played the same news channel at full volume whenever he was around.

The owner (or at least, Tom assumed she was the owner, if the direct orders she gave the other employees was any indication, which Tom believed it was) was usually busy managing customers or handling problems younger employees had trouble dealing with. She scarcely left the counter, but Sunday was a slow day and she seemed to be feeling confident about the two employees she was walking away from to meander over to Tom, who had stopped (not for the first time) to watch the news. 

The shiny young reporter Tom both admired and despised was, again, lamenting on the tragedy at precinct 210. It seemed selfish, to Tom, that someone could feel pain that others felt, pain that didn’t belong to them. But perhaps humanity was just more selfish than Tom realized.

The owner approached with a glass and a rag in hand, her hair bouncing softly in the breeze. If Tom cared to, he could still pick up traces of smoke and ash in the air, when it blew like this.

“Good morning,” the owner said cheerfully, and Tom was a bit disarmed by the genuine lightness in her voice—so… _familiar_. “I’ve seen you pass by every morning, and I’ve been meaning to ask you something, if you’ll forgive my abruptness.”

Tom stared at the old footage of the burning building as frantic ant sized humans ran about trying to put it out. After a second of hesitation, he decided he didn’t mind the woman, and was perhaps in need of conversation anyway.

“What is it?” Tom asked, watching blankly as new footage of the charred building began playing. Humans wearing heavy gear and masks swooped forward into the soot and ash and melted steel.

“It’s just that you watch this news story so intently, especially the rescue effort,” the woman babbled as she began to clean the glass. “You seem very attached to the story. I know it’s out of no-where, but if you know someone who was in that accident—” 

Tom glanced up at her for a moment, and noticed simultaneously that her brow had knit together and her head tilted slightly.

“—I did,” he said shortly.

Her brow furrowed more, and her head tilted less. “Then you should know that there are places out there that help families and friends of those who’ve suffered trauma, as well. Support groups, ways to learn how to help the person in your life that’s hurting.”

The reporter’s face suddenly encompassed the screen, lugubrious, but not sad. “—And after three days search, we have reports that—”

Tom knew by now, that they had an image to upkeep, the emblem of some creed long forgotten— _Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press_ —to lean on for their short fallings. He knew that the only real accountability they had was to those that they controlled the flow of knowledge to, and that meant that they were held accountable by no one, anymore, except by themselves and their ratings. Not that he cared, mind. He couldn’t be cynical about something he honestly didn’t give a damn about.

And yet…the audacity, the arrogance this reporter had, to pretend to feel sorrow and pain she so clearly did not—it made Tom want to fall into a rage and forget his sentience until he was alone with it on this miserable planet.

So yes, she was _lugubrious_ , but not sad. It was even worse than feeling pain that wasn’t yours to feel. Hypocritical—filthy—and so quintessentially human it made Tom want to leave this wretched place to _rot_ , if not for the two people on the planet that mattered more than anything else.

“What was his name?” the woman asked, and the sympathy in her voice made Tom uncomfortable.

“—has been found! A miracle, that after so long—”

Tom diverted his attention from the screen, and with more malice than was perhaps socially ignorable, he and the reporter said together,

“ _Jaron Davis_.”                                                                                    “ _Jaron Davis_ has been found _alive—_ ”

Tom turned back to the television, unblinking as the cameras zoomed in and focused on a thin, nearly naked figure covered in soot and being dragged from the carnage.

The woman’s attention was pulled from Tom as her eyes took in what Tom was watching. All sympathy towards Tom vanished as she watched the scene unfold. Tom, to his chagrin, almost missed it.

“Is that—is that him?” she whispered, face aghast. “Did _you_ —He—he looks—”

‘ _Did I what?_ ’ Tom thought, but the thought fell away as he looked at the television.

The camera had a clear shot of the missing cop’s face. He was bloody, eyes puffy, covered in bruises, bones piercing through the skin in several places. Old and new tears had made trails down his cheeks, and whenever he opened his mouth, it was to hack up a putrid mixture of bile, soot, and blood. Atop his head was shiny, twisted wire that Jaron hadn’t had the coordination to pull off of himself when the building initially fell. The two paramedics, who each had an arm stretched out over their shoulders to support him, turned Jaron around to preserve his dignity as they carried him to a gurney, and along his back shards of wood stuck out of him, oozing yellow pus. His legs dragged uselessly behind him as he was pulled along, leaving trails of everything he had been through the last several days behind him.

That poor man,” the woman said pityingly. “That _poor_ _man_. And his family— _shit, his **mother**!_ ”

Tom and the woman (and the reporter, and a million other faceless humans who felt nothing more than sick curiosity about the whole thing) watched together as police pulled away a violently shaking woman, her sobs wracking her body so immensely that two paramedics broke from the circle surrounding Jaron and went to her aid.

The mourning woman knelt, hands raised upward to the heavens, and through her agony and her boundless joy, she worshiped her God right there on the filthy streets, and as Tom watched her he realized that he had never known faith like that in his entire life. 

Tom could hear an irregular patter to his side, and to his great surprise (and disgust) ~~(and envy)~~ , the woman was crying alongside him.

“I almost wish he had died, if only to be spared…if only all of them to be spared _this_ —”

Tom turned sharply towards her, a fire burning inside of him so hot it burned away every other feeling he ever had.

“Suffering proves that you’re alive,” he said forcefully. “I’d rather be on the rack every day for the rest of existence than to sit in the silent nothingness of death.”

Tom shook his head, feeling cynical in his truth. “If suffering means that I am alive, then it means that there is a chance I may change my destiny, make something different of myself. Death is absolute. There is no turning back from it.”

The woman huffed and smiled miserably.

“We can conjecture all we want, but at the end of the day… I will never know how or when I will die. I’ve only grown to learn that there are no absolutes, not even in death. I’ve learned to be pragmatic about these things, ya know? What’s the point in arguing about life after death if it doesn’t really matter until I face it myself?”

Silence fell over the two as Tom watched tiny little ants scurry over the great destruction he had created/caused. He watched them move Jaron to a stretcher, watched them stop to peal out the mess Tom had made of his back.

“Because we’re scared of not mattering,” Tom said, eyes still on the television. “Suffering means hardship, but it also means that we matter. If someone only hurt me, for whatever the reason, I matter to them, at least a little. If they killed me, then they didn’t care, and that’s worse than anything else I can think of. They’ve given up on me. I’m worthless, in their eyes. And I’m alone.”

It was the longest Tom had spent in the company of another human since Jaron. On the television screen, the camera cut to the crowd’s reaction, and Tom saw children, eyes bright, mouths whispering excitedly as they spoke about the man who survived, who would get better, who had risked his life and come out the victor in the long run. He wondered why their parents wanted to watch so badly that they didn’t mind their children watching too.

“Loneliness?” the woman said, mulling it over. “Pretty intimidating. But buddy, if someone hurts you, it doesn’t matter why. If they had the capacity to hurt you, then they don’t care at all. Stay away from people who hurt you.”

Tom thought about his parents, how even when he betrayed them as a child by sneaking off with ‘ _that bastard!_ ’, they still hadn’t destroyed him in a world where betrayal was regularly met with death. He thought of the people he respected enough to leave alive, about the people who hadn’t had it in them to deliver the final blow when it had really mattered (even if it didn’t matter in the end, curse his immortality).

“Chalk it up to a difference in species,” he said to himself with a shrug. To the woman, he said, “pain is not the worst thing I’ve dealt with. Pain is temporary.”

“I had a soccer coach, when I was growing up,” the woman said, half lost in nostalgia Tom didn’t quite understand, “who wanted us to win. He had us run laps and carry each other. We scrimmaged and drilled, of course, but, I’ll tell you—” the woman shook her head an ironic smile on her lips. “—we ran more than anything. When we didn’t run hard enough, we had to do planks—balancing on our toes and forearms with our backs straight. Doesn’t seem hard, but it hurt like a bitch. And as we were doing those planks, as we were complaining and groaning, he’d walk amongst us and tell us: pain is temporary; pain is just fear leaving your body.”

“And did you win?” Tom asked, seriously. He may not know the sport, but the desire to succeed, to show an enemy that they were outclassed wasn’t a trait limited to Earth.

The paramedics were almost finished with Jaron’s back.

The woman smiled softly. “We won.”

“Then it was worth it,” Tom said plainly. “The pain made you strong, so it was worth it. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and all of that garbage.”

“Anastasia Petros broke her ankle during semi-finals one year though. Couldn’t play anymore.” The woman said with a shrug, her eyes now on the television again. “Even when she got better, she couldn’t touch the ball. The pain scared away the love of the game.”

Tom frowned. “Pain can’t do that. You heal, and you move on.”

The woman looked at him, startled.

“Pain can absolutely do that,” she said sharply. “I thought you would have learned this lesson very well by now. Perhaps you’ll find out the truth some day.”

Tom frowned, a little confused about the intensity of her words. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his scissors.

“That’s absurd; you said so yourself: pain is temporary.” Tom glanced around to see if any humans were watching; they weren’t, and he cut himself a portal. The owner watched him work, face stone.

“Go find Jaron Davis then,” she said. “See if I am wrong. I never am.”

Tom frowned again and nodded. Without any preamble, he stepped into the portal.

* * *

When Tom only opened his third eye, he could see those that weren’t touched by the influence of magic. When he only closed his third eye, those that weren’t touched by the influence of magic couldn’t see him. It had been an even worse power than his previous one, and yet was now serving him quite well.

Demons didn’t always use their magic on purpose. Magic was messy, and controlling it required finesse that demons…didn’t always have. So demon magic wiped off on those around them, occasionally. Why no magic had wiped off on Marco yet was…a little embarrassing, for demon kind. Marco had dealt with magic for years from hundreds of different species, and it hadn’t ever rubbed off on him because demons were _that_ bad at controlling themselves. It was luck that enough of Tom’s magic hadn’t rubbed off on Marco to hide him from Tom before he had even thought to look.

When Tom walked through the other side of the portal, he ignored whatever residue feelings he had from the conversation with the owner and closed his third eye.

Chaos surrounded him. Sirens were blaring from all around, and he could hear a woman crying and rejoicing behind him. In front of him, sitting in rags, surrounded by paramedics, was Jaron. He was dirtier than Tom thought he would be, and he smelled absolutely foul when Tom got closer. From the position of the medics behind Jaron, he could see that they were almost done removing the larger shards of wood and glass from his back. Jaron didn’t even flinch as they pulled, and Tom was proud of him, for that self-control.

He decided to forgive Jaron for his actions earlier that week, for tricking Tom into thinking he was a friend. It was a grand gesture, from where Tom was from.

“I see you made it out alive,” Tom said, happy with his own magnanimity and very obvious about it. “I’m glad.”

Jaron startled visibly at his words as his head shot up lightning fast. Tom smiled at the wide brown eyes, the trembling lower lip, the creases in his brow.

“You’re looking a little worse for wear, but I’m sure you’ll clean up just fine,” Tom continued on with an almost coy smile, his eyelids drooping as he looked down at Jaron.

Jaron’s neck twisted back and forth, as if he were trying to see who had let Tom come so close, but was left with no answers. Tears welled up in his eyes, and suddenly Tom was feeling very gentle, like this little human in front of him was— ~~someone else~~.

“No, don’t cry, Jaron,” Tom knelt in front of the man and gently touched his shoulder. Jaron tried to yank himself back, but the paramedics behind him kept him steady. “You have no reason to be upset.”

Tom was absolutely delighted, now. It had been so long since he had felt so light. Tears began falling from Jaron’s eyes, and Tom was quick to move his hands so that they framed Jaron’s face. His fingers softly rubbed circles into the top of the man’s cheek bones, leaving smears of dirt and tears on his face. Tom bent his head, considering the man in front of him.

“I know you regret what you did to me,” Tom said. “You humans are so quick to judge, so quick to anger. Demons are a lot like you all in that regard.”

Jaron whimpered and pulled back, but the attempt was so weak he couldn’t even slip out of Tom’s fingers. Tom felt a sudden pang for Marco, and held onto it closely.

“Demons, however volatile our emotions are, however humanlike we are in that sense…” Tom trailed off, tilting Jaron’s head up slightly to inspect his neck. There were no injuries present, but Tom did see an ugly gash in Jaron’s side. “Demons tend not to forgive very easily. If at all. Not like humans. Grudges are…. a social norm, where I’m from. If someone wrongs you, usually what ends up happening is that you kill them before any niceties or apologies can be truly accepted.”

Tom’s eyes travelled to Jaron’s arms, to his wrists. They were scarred and bloody, and his hands were clenched. He had lost fingernails.

“So I hope that you understand how big it is when I say this,” Tom said softly, eyes drawn to a flash of silver clenched in one of Jaron’s hands. Slowly, Tom reached down and took Jaron’s hand in both of his prying his fingers apart. Metal shaped into calligraphy—and Tom almost laughed. He had thought that, for some reason, he would be staring down at a crucifix and not an ancient script.

In Tom’s hands, Jaron’s were thin and cold and unmoving. Tom stared at them, admired the contrast between them and the shiny metal Jaron must have held tightly onto for the past few days.

“I forgive you,” Tom said softly, intensely. His hands closed Jaron’s over his necklace and pulled it out. Tom placed a kiss on Jaron’s hand, and then placed it back in Jaron’s lap. “I’m sure you’ll get better soon, hm? See you around.”

* * *

He stepped back through the portal and again found himself at _Pythia’s_. This time, he didn’t bother putting his scissors away. Tom was ready to leave this town. The woman was staring at him from across the room—like she had been waiting?—and immediately came to Tom when the portal closed behind him.

“Cameras caught Jaron Davis crying after he closed a hand over that necklace,” she said thunderously. “They think he was thanking Allah that he was still alive in his own way, since he couldn’t do it properly at the time.”

“He hasn’t died yet, and other than his injuries, he seems fine,” Tom said, his cheer slowly creeping away from him as the woman’s eyes bored into him.

Her sharp laugh startled him.

“If you heard yourself, you would know what a fool you really are,” she said with a sneer. “How little you know, about pain, about humans. You are a child.”

“Watch your tone,” Tom threw back with a bit of a bite, suddenly feeling weary of the woman in front of him. “I only came back to tell you that he was going to be fine. His injuries didn’t kill him, and I know an old Earth adage that says that he’ll be stronger for them.”

“The right kind of pain makes for the wrong kind of healing: namely, none. I pray that those you care about aren’t the ones to teach you this lesson,” she said firmly. “But even I don’t know if anyone is really listening anymore.”

Tom turned violently towards her, and in one hand, his scissors started cutting.

“He won’t be!” he snapped, and turned into the portal without looking back. “No matter what, he’ll be fine! I’ll make sure of it.”

From behind him, in a voice that made Tom’s blood run cold, the woman said this:

“Do not speak so certainly about the fate of Marco Diaz, when you know so little about so much.”

Tom turned—enraged—alarmed—confused—scared—but his scissors were already back in his pocket, with no time to reach them before the portal closed.

* * *

When he arrived at his destination, he immediately turned around and went back to the café, intent on burning it to the ground if the woman didn’t answer every last one of his questions about what she knew.

Where the bustling little café once stood was now an empty lot, a true rarity in a place where land was such a costly commodity.

Tom stared at the uneven patches of grass growing from a large pile of dirt and rocks in the middle of the lot. Absently, he noted that they had to have been growing for months to be at the length they were.

It had been a while, but Tom would never truly forget the flutter in his stomach and the clench of his heart that fear always caused him at moments like these.

As he turned to go, a slight movement near the dirt pile caught his attention. Moving slower than he would have ten minutes ago, Tom approached a fluttering piece of red parchment that seemed to be calling him by name. Surveying his surroundings, he decided it was safe enough for him to pick up the parchment.

It had his name on it. And not the ‘Tom’ he told mortals to call him whenever their eyes got so big in their heads he could pluck them out when they saw his real name.

It had no magic on it—but then again, why would it? Despite never having much, humans were feared for the control they had over their magic. They could do with a dram what he could do with a gallon, and they never wasted a drop in rage or by slip of concentration.

With perhaps too much caution thrown to the wind, Tom bared his teeth and opened the parchment:

War broke: and now the Winter of the world  
With perishing great darkness closes in.  
The foul tornado, centred at Berlin,  
Is over all the width of Europe whirled.

3 8 10

Was this… _prophecy_? It rang in his mind uncomfortably loudly, like all of the other ones about him had. But Earth rarely had true Speakers, and Tom hadn’t known of an Oracle on Earth since…

His mind flashed to dark skin, to silky, bouncy curls, to a sharpness of eyes and mouth he hadn’t known since…

“Since Pythia, damn it,” he muttered. “I’m such a fucking _idiot_ …”

He’d watched her die. Promptly put her out of his mind. Moved on.

And never stopped to wonder why she had been so calm, covered in her own lifeblood, as her lover removed the arrow that had pierced her neck some three thousand years ago.

Pythia had Seen herself be hit by the arrow, and no Oracle could ever See their own deaths.

‘ _I can’t believe I didn’t recognize her_ ,’ Tom thought miserably, shifting through his memory to see if he could recall her face even now. To his deep disappointment, he couldn’t.

Tom stared at the red parchment, at the numbers. The words themselves were simple enough to decipher: she had left him a warning. But the numbers?

Pythia always liked to include numbers that corresponded to events in her work, but clearly the code had changed. The last time he remembered her using numbers, zero hadn’t existed in Greek.

Tom sighed and stuffed the parchment in his pocket.

It was one thing that Pythia was alive; Tom had always known that she was blessed with Sight and power, and it wasn’t too much of a stretch that she had gotten lucky enough that someone had wanted her alive to continue her work. Humans hadn’t quite discovered immortality, but that didn’t mean they had never been close.

That Pythia was here now, though? After staying away from him for so long?

It didn’t bode well.

The wind blew, and an unnaturalness settled on the lot that made Tom’s skin crawl. He could smell the ash and smoke in the air, and for the first time in a long time, he felt cold.

* * *

In late July, Tom learned he needed to apply to school in order to go.

Echo Creek Academy was an interesting blend of opulent and rundown, the new paint job and shiny windows clashing horribly with rusty hinges and sidewalks covered with dark black splotches of old gum.  
  
Tom pushed through the creaky double doors and followed signs to the office, only pausing once to admire a very large, very recent hole in a wall by the cafeteria. It was only half filled in, and Tom could see burn marks around the edges. He had missed what had probably been a very busy few months for Marco and Star.

Tom kept moving, intent on keeping this particular conversation very short. The principal, Tom knew, was a simple, greedy man. He only had to fill the man’s pockets with as much currency as he could hold, and Tom would have whatever he wanted from him; the demon was intent on shamelessly bribing Skeeves to get what he wanted, and upon self-introspection, decided that he wasn’t above it if it served a noble(ish) purpose.

When he reached the office, the old woman sitting at a desk in front of the office frowned, but told him to sit in the waiting room until she called him.

“The principal will see you now,” she said to the nearly empty room, and without further prompting Tom put down the old magazine left to entertain him and pushed open the principal’s door.

The first thing Tom noticed was that Skeeves was shorter than he realized. From what Tom remembered of the school, Marco was a few inches taller than Skeeves, but Tom practically towered over him as he rose to greet his guest.

Skeeves initial reaction was perfect for Tom’s intentions. He was fearful, as humans tended to be, but more than that, there was a spark in his eye that kept him from yelling out in fear. It was one thing to know that a man was greedy; it was an entirely other thing to be able to manipulate that greed first-hand. Tom’s grin could only be described as anticipatory. This should be quick.  

“Hello, Principal Skeeves,” Tom said easily, moving to shake the hand Skeeves had offered him. “Call me Tom.”

“It’s nice to, _ah!_ Make your acquaintance, Tom,” Skeeves said, gasping when Tom’s hand detached and continued shaking the principal’s hand as Tom made to sit down.

Skeeves dropped the hand, which scurried back to Tom.

“Tell me,” Skeeves said, sitting down as well. There was a bit of a jitter in his voice as he tried to school it into something worthy of respect. “What can I do for you today, Tom?”

“I’d like to enroll here for my senior year of high school,” Tom said calmly, tone betraying nothing of the emotion behind the statement.

Skeeves took one look at him and _howled_ with laughter.

And Tom learned that even the simplest of humans still had a layer or two to them that could surprise him.

“Absolutely not,” Skeeves said. “I’m done with letting supernatural freaks who have nothing better to do than break my school and heckle Butterfly enroll as students. Unless, by some miracle, you happen to be applying for the phenomenal staff and the rigorous academic coursework, take your business outside of these walls!”

“I’m not here to do either of those things,” Tom replied hotly. Skeeves laughed. “I’m not!”

The principal leaned forward, smiling meanly. “Look kid, I really, truly don’t care what your beef with Butterfly is. Keep it off my campus and we won’t have a problem.”

“I’m not here for Star!” Tom said quickly, blushing slightly. How had this weakling of a man taken control of the conversation so quickly?

Skeeves caught the first name slip, noted it, and said, “I don’t believe a damn word coming from your mouth! There’s no amount of money that you could offer me that would make me reconsider my decision.”

Tom caught the implication and the inklings of an idea began to form.

“I’m not offering money, if you won’t take it,” he said silkily, leaning forward and brushing a hand over a small metal fixture on the desk. A thin trail of smoke slid up from where his finger brushed the bauble. “And besides, I have no quarrel with Star Butterfly or a desire to burn the school to the ground.”’ 

Skeeves reached over and pulled it away from Tom’s reach. And Tom regained control.

“Could have fooled me,” Skeeves muttered, but Tom had his attention now.

“I’m offering you a deal,” Tom smiled. “You enroll me at Echo Creek and put me in the classes I want to be in, and in exchange… well, what do you want, Principal Skeeves?”

“I—excuse me?” Skeeves asked faintly.

“If we make a deal, I can offer you nearly anything,” Tom said, drumming his fingers on the desk. “Riches, fame, happiness… name it, and chances are, it can be done.”

The principal suddenly stood, trying to menace over Tom.

Cruelly, Skeeves said, “I want Star Butterfly dead.”

There was not a moment’s hesitation—Tom, ablaze, viciously backhanded Skeeves across the desk—and Skeeves fell roughly into his seat.

“Try again,” Tom snarled. “And this time, value your life with the answer you give.”

Involuntary tears clouded Skeeves’ eyes as he struggled to push himself up. Tom took a few calming breathes, trying to remember what Brian said about counting to ten and positive anger outlets. It was times like this that he missed his old life coach.

“Look, I didn’t mean to lose control,” he started, easing back into his chair. “But don’t think for a single second I’m sorry. Don’t talk about Star like that. Or Marco, for that matter. I won’t include them in this deal.”

Tom put out the last of the fire on his shoulder and waited for Skeeves’ response.

Panting slightly, Skeeves tenderly touched his cheek and rubbed blood from under his nose. It looked as if he was going to cooperate now, if only to get Tom out of his office.

“Look, I didn’t mean to get socked in the face, either, kid,” Skeeves said. “What’s done is done. I don’t really care about Butterfly, or Diaz for that matter, past what damages they’ve caused my school. First guarantee me that you won’t be costing me a single cent in property damages this year.”

“Is that really all you want?” Tom asked disbelievingly. If this was Skeeves attempting to be the bigger person, Tom was thoroughly unimpressed. He’d dealt with humans for too long for one like _this_ to suddenly heel-face turn into someone with a moral compass.

Skeeves, for his part, was at least consistent in his shortcomings.

“I’m not considering making a deal with you without you promising that much, first,” he said, and Tom nearly growled.

“Your shit school won’t come to any harm by my hand,” he said. “Now what do you want?”

Skeeves smiled smugly, if a little tensely. Tom’s handprint was visible on his face.

“Immortality,” he said carefully, as if Tom was in danger of mishearing him.

Tom blinked. And blinked again.

“Did you even think about it at all?” he asked skeptically. “Being immortal sucks!”

“I think dying _sucks_ a little bit more,” Skeeves said. “That’s my price. If you can give it to me, I’ll enroll you and schedule you however you want. Unless…” and here, Skeeves thought he was being particularly condescending, “you can’t hack it? I know it’s a tall order, and if you can’t do it…”

Tom thought about the arguments he usually tried when a mortal asked for immortality. How statistically, they would just end up trapped for hundreds of years under a cave in. How evolution would eventually leave them in the dust, and they’d be left looking like Homo Erectus to future humans. How painful starvation was, how painful chronic illness was, without death to ease it all away in the end. How there was never an easy escape, once immortality laid its vile hands upon whatever naïve fool had asked for it.

Tom thought about how most demons weren’t even immortal, how it was a curse strictly for the reigning king, queen, and their first heir to suffer through until someone else managed to… _relieve_ them of it. Tom thought about how the only way to relieve someone of their immortality was to physically rip it out of their bodies and devour it immediately. The base of Tom’s immortality was sitting pretty right behind his third eye. He couldn’t guess where it would sit on Skeeves.

Tom thought about explaining that he wouldn’t be able to take the curse back, and that if Skeeves ripped it out of his own body, it would just appear right back where it was in a minute. He thought about telling him that once this curse began, it had to be passed on, and not only passed on, but desired and taken. That there were so very few who wouldn’t pass up the offer. That he’d be alive for a very long time looking for one.

Then he looked at the stupid, smug grin on Skeeves’ face and threw whatever fledgling compassion he had for anyone who wanted immortality out the window.

“Immortality for my senior year and choice of scheduling?” he asked, sticking out his hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

Skeeves, to his credit, didn’t hesitate. Even as static filled the room, as smoke rose from Tom’s hand and curled around the room, as Tom’s eyes glowed unnaturally white—as they always did, when a deal was being struck—Tom’s new principal’s shoved his clammy hand into Tom’s and gave it two quick shakes.

Tom grinned, even if he didn’t really feel like doing so. He resolved to be far away when Skeeves realized how much of a fool he really was. Until then…

“Schedule me with Marco Diaz,” Tom said curtly, refusing to look Skeeves in the eye as he made his request. “Assign him to show me around, like you made him do for Star.”

Skeeves didn’t say anything. He probably thought Tom would hit him if he did.

Tom sighed. “When do classes start?” he asked, feeling drained.

Skeeves, who was staring down at his hands like they had changed, only mumbled:

“Three weeks from Monday.”

Tom nodded and decided to skip his _Welcome to Immortality_ speech. With his scissors, he was off of Earth before Skeeves could ask about the strange weight he felt in his side, over the same place Prometheus had his liver taken from him each day for his arrogance and his betrayal of the gods.

* * *

Tom spent three endless Earth weeks in his home in the underworld, waiting to see Marco and begin his plan. No one bothered him during his studies, and his parents were rarely there to eat with him, busy as they were with their duties.

It was a surprise, therefore, when someone had the audacity to knock on his bedroom door a mere two hours before he needed to leave for Earth to begin his work.

“Enter!” Tom said grouchily, quickly shoving a travel bag under his bed filled items he’d be bringing with him that didn’t do so well when they were magicked into existence. Short of his parents, he couldn’t think of anyone in the castle that would dare disturb him at this hour.

Tom saw a right hand first, grasping the door firmly as it pushed it open. It was gray, clawed…

…and missing two fingers.

“Uncle Dantalion?” Tom said incredulously as the demon, somewhat taller and broader than himself, entered the room.

Dantalion strongly reminded Tom of his father; their skin was the same shade of gray, their faces were both regal…but Dantalion had greyer hair than either Tom or his father, and across his eyes were several ugly scars, likely the queen’s work. Just like Tom’s father, Dantalion’s head was hornless, and instead of a third eye (a trait only those next in line for the throne had) a thin, red line split his forehead in two, indicating that he was second in line to the throne. His face was starting to wrinkle, just enough to show that he wasn’t as young as he used to be.

Dantalion was dressed in thick coats and heavy jewelry. Tom was amused to see that he had a ring on each finger he had left: now, only seven.

“Tom!” Dantalion said warmly, moving closer to hug his nephew. And no, Tom was not ready to hug the man that his parents hated so much. With a hiss, Tom let fire fly from his hands, nearly scorching Dantalion as he came too close. “Tom, I’m hurt! How long will it have to be for my only nephew to miss his only uncle?”

“You won’t live long enough to find out,” Tom said with fake smugness. It was a cheap shot. Dantalion may be second in line, may be older than Tom, but he was aging. Tom felt bad when the awkward cheer his uncle had been trying to push off onto him abruptly became a little pained.

Dantalion’s arms dropped tensely, and he turned from the conversation. Tom let his own arms fall too, and stood back, watching Dantalion wearily. Being next to his uncle after so long reminded Tom of why he had been married to the queen in the first place. Dantalion radiated power—more so than his father did, and there was a menace to him that the king, despite his own cruel streak, couldn’t hope to match.

“Which is why I want to make amends now,” he said, so quietly that Tom doubted that he had actually said it.

“Excuse me?” Tom asked.

Dantalion’s shoulders drooped as he turned, and to Tom’s astonishment, he looked remorseful. It was strange to see a man, once fit to be king, lowering himself like this. Tom didn’t know if it made him uncomfortable or if it was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

“I’ve hurt my family so much in the past,” he said, “when I was young and knew nothing but my own shortsighted greed. I’ve wanted to…show my queen and her husband—my brother, Malphas—that I truly regret my actions. But they’ve made it clear in the past they don’t want to listen to me.”

Tom rolled his eyes, noticing that Dantalion watched the motion very carefully. He turned and walked over to the great windows in his room, peering out at the hellscape his family ruled over.

“If you’re here for your fingers, my mother has made it very clear that you won’t be getting them back without—”

“—without my balls hanging in their place, yes Tom, I’ve heard that threat before,” Dantalion said tiredly. “But now? I don’t care about the fingers. I just want my queen to know that I am sorry that I betrayed her, and I want my brother to know that I forgive him for what he did as well.”

Tom’s stomach dropped at the word. His uncle couldn’t be serious—

Dantalion shuffled closer to him—Tom could hear cloth brush against cloth.

Tom turned and almost jumped—Dantalion was standing right behind him, and in a flash his uncle had grabbed his wrist and pulled it away from Tom, leaving him open. Dantalion pulled Tom in for a hug, his strong arms turning an awkward embrace into one so warm Tom returned it. Tom’s mind began to feel a little hazy as he got comfortable; if he were a cat, he’d be purring.

In truth, he had missed his uncle dearly. He’d always been a friendly face, whenever he’d been able to spirit Tom away to spend some time with him. Always made Tom feel special, and not because he was heir to the throne. Dantalion liked him for who he was, and it was hard when he couldn’t be around to rely on.

A low rumble rose from his uncle’s chest; Dantalion was genuinely laughing, a sound rarely heard in the underworld and never once from his uncle’s mouth before, in Tom’s memory.

Slowly, Dantalion pulled away and knelt in front of Tom, putting a hand on each shoulder. Like this, Tom was only slightly taller than his uncle.

“I care a great deal about you, Tom,” he said. “You’ve always been my favorite.”

Tom looked away. “I’m sorry about the age comment,” he said, and meant it.

Dantalion laughed. “I deserved it, for how little time I’ve made to spend with you. It’s been too long, hasn’t it?”

Tom tried to think back to the last time he and his uncle had spent time together—he hadn’t seen Dantalion since they’d gone hunting together. Dantalion seemed to be remembering too, because he winced and asked:

“Does Lilian still call me a bastard?”

Tom laughed, but the memory of the punishment he had received was now fresh in his mind.

“Yeah, she does,” he said. “Glad she didn’t kill you then, though.”

“And I’m glad she didn’t kill _you_ then,” his uncle returned warmly. Dantalion stood, brushing off his thighs and stepping back from Tom. “I’ve got a present for you.”

“Do you really?” Tom asked, pleasure curling through him at the gesture.

Dantalion didn’t say anything; reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small cloth and gently plopped it into Tom’s hands.

“It’s about time I gave this to its rightful owner,” he said with a sheepish grin.

Tom unwrapped what turned out to be a beautiful silver ring. Seated in it was a large ruby, and on either side of the gem, runes were carved into the band. Tom knew immediately what it was—but how did Dantalion have—

“It was meant to be for my heir, when I was king,” Dantalion said. “When I left, I took it with me, out of spite. I debated destroying it… until you were born and my brother all but demanded I come see you. Something about it being more important that I see you than whatever drama was going on between us and Lilian…”

Tom’s eyes were wide, listening intently to his uncle.

“And… you want me to wear it now?” he asked, full of praise and warmth and loyalty very quickly, and a little overeager for it.

“I do,” Dantalion said, and Tom slipped the ring on his right middle finger, delighting in its beauty. “You are a perfect heir, Tom. I’m grateful to have you.”

“I—thank you, Uncle Dan,” Tom said. Dantalion nodded, looking satisfied.

“I’ll let you be, now, Tom,” he said. “Perhaps it’s time for me to try to find your parents again.”

“Try talking to my dad first,” Tom said seriously. “I think he’d like to see you around more.”

Dantalion’s eyes clouded, and he nodded firmly.

“Thank you for telling me that, Tom,” he said. “I’ll send a message to you before I walk in uninvited again, okay?”

Tom nodded back at him, thankful that Dantalion had unknowingly saved him a lot of trouble by promising not to barge into what would soon be his obviously empty and unused room in the months to come.

“Good night, Tom,” Dantalion said fondly, moving towards the door.

“Good night, uncle,” Tom replied, watching the door close behind Dantalion.

And it made Tom’s feelings for his uncle simpler, when he came with kind words and presents and goodwill for all. It was nice to deal with a family member that didn’t have ulterior motives, for once.

* * *

Tom was still feeling content when it was time to leave. In other words, in no mood to ascend like he had before. His scissors made for an easy trip, and having nothing to hide from Skeeves, he decided that he would just appear directly in the principal’s office.

Skeeves yelled the moment he noticed Tom and fell from his chair. Tom thought about laughing, but Skeeves was such small game right now he was more of a distraction than anything else.

The time had finally come. He had practiced what he would say, had thought about every scenario this initial meeting could throw at him, had prepared for anger or fear or anything else Marco could react with.

His plan was so simple, it was foolproof. Get Marco to trust him (and Tom was a trustable guy, seeing how had never really _done_ anything too bad to Star or Marco) and save him ( ~~and have him fall in love with Tom~~ ). Make a deal in which Marco agreed to bond souls with Tom in exchange for—anything, Tom would give him anything.

He’d been a little distracted, these past two months, but he was done fooling around. From here on out, fixing this mess was his only concern.

When the rest of the students had arrived in homeroom, Skeeves called Marco to his office. Tom estimated that it would take two minutes, forty-five seconds for Marco to make the trip.

“Remember our deal,” Tom said menacingly to Skeeves, who nodded, rubbing at his side. Tom followed the hand’s movements wondering why— _oh_.

“You eventually forget about the weight,” Tom said.

“It would have been nice to know about that little side effect!” Skeeves growled. “Damn thing’s been itching for weeks!”

“What did you think, that a wish like that came with nothing? That immortality would leave you feeling like a mortal?”

Skeeves opened his mouth (to snarl out some obscenity, no doubt) but was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Holy shit he’s actually here,” Tom said, and just like that his excitement levels went haywire.

“Come in,” Skeeves said gruffly, and in Tom’s opinion far too softly for Marco to hear.

And yet, Marco twisted the knob—

“ _Shit!_ ”

The door flew open, and Marco was holding his hand, inspecting it like it had burned him.

Tom almost giggled, he was so happy to see Marco in person after so long.

‘ _He’s here, he’s here, I can’t believe he’s finally in front of me!_ ’

“Diaz,” Skeeves said, trying to get Marco’s attention, and Tom wanted to growl at the man and tell him to leave—

“Principal Skeeves,” Marco replied, gingerly prodding his hand. “I think your door knob burned me?”

“Burned you?” Tom asked, and an inkling suspicion told him that his magic had flared up in his excitement. God, how _embarrassing_ —

Marco looked up, and for a second, his eyes met Tom’s and he was completely bewildered.

“Shi— _Tom_?” he hissed, throwing himself back and sinking into a fighting pose. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

“Ah, so the two of you really _are_ already acquainted,” Skeeves said, like it was a completely normal thing to have a demon standing in his office. “This makes it even easier.”

Tom shot an annoyed glance in the direction of the principal, but his eyes quickly focused on Marco.

“Hi, Marco,” Tom said, smiling a little for good measure, “it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Tom offered his hand to Marco, who just stared at the offending digits.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, hesitantly, very pointedly _not_ taking the hand offered out to him.

It frustrated Tom, but he let it go. Marco was here, in front of him, and everything was great and he had no reason to be upset about something as small as a hand left unshaken. Instead, Tom’s eyes traveled down Marco’s arm to the hand he was cradling close to his chest. Tom’s face cleared in comprehension, and he reached out and plucked Marco’s hand away from him. Marco tried to yank it back—and usually, Tom would have let him, but this time he held firm.

“Let go!” Marco hissed again, but the pain was very rapidly decreasing as the heat from the burn was slowly pulled away from his hand, and the grimace rapidly falling from his face made Tom feel like he was doing something right, for once.

“Sorry you got burned,” Tom said. “I’m usually in more control. I was just excited, I guess.”

Marco pulled his hand back quickly, inspecting it again. It was still red (Tom couldn’t help that), but the heat that sat in it was gone, and it didn’t hurt.

“Excited for what?” Marco asked suspiciously, stepping back from Tom.  

From behind his desk, Skeeves gave Marco something too insincere to be a smile but too lumpy to be a smirk.

“Marco Diaz,” Skeeves said tightly, “congratulations. The administration has chosen you to be the guide of this upstanding young man until he is properly settled in our lovely school. His classes—”

Marco laughed, sarcastic and dry.

“No,” he said, turning to leave, barely containing his chortles. “Bye.”

Skeeves gave a choked cry and scrambled back, unused to Marco’s blatant disrespect. Tom would have been proud, but at the moment…

Marco toed open the door, weary of the burning knob, and marched himself out without looking back.

…Tom felt like his arms could fall off and never reattach, and it wouldn’t make any difference. He was rooted to the spot. Marco didn’t even give him a chance to explain himself. Didn’t even give him the benefit of the doubt…

Alone in the room with Skeeves, all he could think was that he had not planned on Marco disengaging entirely from the situation, hadn’t dreamed he’d just walk away.

‘ _If they killed me, then they didn’t care, and that’s worse than anything else I can think of,_ ’ he’d said to Pythia, so many weeks ago. ‘ _They’ve given up on me. I’m worthless, in their eyes. And I’m alone_.’

“Diaz!” Skeeves yelled from behind Tom, voice raised and face no doubt flushed, “Diaz, stop!”

“Skeeves, shut up,” Tom said. He rubbed angrily at his eyes, trying to get them to stop stinging.

“But our deal—”

“Is still intact,” Tom growled. He pushed himself forward off of locked legs and began the chase.

As fast as he could be sometimes, it was easy to catch up to Marco, who carried himself like he was both scorned and tired of being involved. He didn’t even look very surprised when Tom appeared in front of him, face panicked, limbs ungraceful as he tried to block Marco’s path to the door that connected the buildings without caging him in.

“Wait, Marco, I can explain!” Tom said, hands out, voice pitchy. “I’m sorry about freaking out and almost hurting you at the ball and being weird with Star and making the worst first impression ever! It was horrible of me to act like that and I’m sorry!”

Marco stared at him for a moment, completely caught off guard. It made Tom stupidly hopeful.

“I don’t care. Move, Tom!” Marco demanded, his face hardening, and Tom jumped out of the way as he pushed passed.

 Marco slammed the door open and stormed out, Tom following quickly behind him. It made no sense, that Marco was suddenly so upset about the Blood Moon Ball, when Tom had watched Marco argue with Star that Tom wasn’t evil, wasn’t some mindless, unthinking, unfeeling—

“Marco, I—”

Marco turned and made a complicated gesture, pushing his hand away from his heart. Tom winced, recognizing the sign, before he was thrown a few steps back into the door.

“Leave us alone, Tom,” Marco warned. “I won’t tell you again.”

“But Marco—”

Marco threw his hands up in the air and snarled, turning around to face the demon.

“I don’t want to hear it! Now get out of my school, or I swear I’ll call Star and she’ll make sure it happens!” Marco growled, pointing a finger at the demon.

Tom felt very small; his shoulders hunched and his fingers twitched softly.

_‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this it wasn’t supposed to be like this it wasn’t supposed to be like this—”_

“Please… why are you so angry at me?” he asked softly, and Marco’s eyes nearly softened at the pathetic sight before him. Tom looked like he was about to cry.

But Marco held firm, and so did his anger.

“I think I have a right to be, seeing how you’ve been spying on Star for _years_ , and you used me to do it! Keep whatever plans you have for her to yourself, and if I ever catch wind that you’re up to something here, _you’ll be_ _sorry_.”

Tom watched in agony as Marco turned and stalked around the corner, disappearing from sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn...do I love those OC's. In my defense, Star V FOE needs more characters. If you can guess what poem I based a portion of this chapter off of, tell me please. I wasn't too subtle, but I like the poem and thought it fit.
> 
> Also: relationships aren't easy everyone!!! Maybe I should tag this as a slow burn? Like I'm not going to be dragging anything out, but our lovely couple has some issues to work through and some trust to build up (and some growing up to do).
> 
> On Pythia's prophecies: The numbers do mean something. I'd love to hear guesses, and I did base them off of a rhyme, but I heavily modified it to fit my own needs. If someone guesses what each number means (and there are eleven of them) I'll incorporate it into the story in some way. 
> 
> Finally, sorry I took so long! I do like writing, but I got distracted by like three other fandoms in between this chapter and the last. Still, the results are in, and I'm still Star V FOE trash. Next chapter, I promise more characters people actually know and love! (and more OC's).
> 
> Also, shout out time! While I won't name the wonderful commentators down below, there was one person who actually found my tumblr based off of my AO3 username and messaged me directly, and that action basically got me writing after such a long, unplanned hiatus. So thanks hibiscus-mist (on tumblr) for that. It also got me to change my username so people would be directed to my actual blog and not that old sideblog. 
> 
> Well, I've talked for long enough. Hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'm now thinking about chapter 4!


	4. Walls Come Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS CHAPTER HAS TRIGGERS PLEASE SKIP TO THE END TO READ THEM!!!
> 
> There is a point in this chapter where you will probably say 'wait, is there no more actual story in this chapter, am I being spoon fed exposition?'
> 
> I'd like to call it world building and I'll have you know it could potentially be entertaining!!!! haha fat chance but I love world building. The most important parts are bolded in case you want to skim. Don't think that it's necessary to read, but it could offer some insight to what I'm doing. You'll know when it starts.

Tom walked through the empty halls of the school, his shoes skidding the nearly waxed linoleum floor with nearly every step. Had he been furious, he would have left behind smoldering footprints. As it was, he could only muster up a numb sort of anger directed self-wards that was laced with guilt and tension like he had never felt before.

_‘I can’t believe Star knew it was me, that she told Marco, that Marco knew for months I was coming…’_

Because why else would Tom spy, if he wasn’t plotting, planning to do something horrible to them to win Star back into his life? Why else would he try to insert himself back into their lives, if it wasn’t for the worst reasons they could think of?

Personal feelings aside, this revelation left him with a problem: earning Marco’s trust might not be possible, if Marco hated him for spying. A soul bond wouldn’t stick if one party despised the other. Marco didn’t have to love him… though Tom hoped he would, if he ever convinced Marco that his intentions were pure. But he did have to be able to stomach the thought of being tied together for the foreseeable future.

Tom pushed open another set of heavy doors and found himself near the school’s track.

But how would he earn Marco’s trust? Tom grimaced; Star would know, but she’d never tell him without beating him to a pulp and making him bear himself—his plans, and the danger she was in—to her.

And even if Star understood why he did what he did…would it even matter? Human emotions were so hard to predict in comparison to Demons. Demons were reactive. Kill someone’s parents in front of them, and they fall into a rage. Present them something they want, and they’re grateful. Trick them, and they get even.

Humans on the other hand…they might instinctively react the same way, but the prime difference between a Demon and a human, at least emotionally?

Humans could play the long game, and they could do so better than any species Tom had ever come across. Tom had only ever been outright deceived twice in his life…and it didn’t take a genius to connect the dots to the single species that had managed the feat.

It wasn’t that Demons themselves weren’t tricky, either. Demons had a long, proud history of trying to one up each other using any means necessary. But when emotions got involved, even the best laid plans tended to go belly up.

Kicking up dirt now, Tom walked the track, wondering about the future, about how he’d change a mind whose stances weren’t even clear to Tom. He circled the field twice before he was recognized.

“Hey!” a deep voice shouted, quickly joined by another, slightly higher voice. Tom’s head shot up, confused as to who would want his attention.

A redhead—absolutely huge—and a lanky, tan teen were jogging towards him, a happy sort of confusion on their faces. Tom frowned, searching his memory…oh.

_Oh._

_‘Marco’s friends,’_ Tom thought with distaste. From watching them, he knew they were annoying, especially when they were nervous. How they’d handle an encounter with him…would probably lighten his mood in such a way that if Marco ever found out about the encounter, Tom would have better luck reasoning with a rock.

He would play nice with these two even if it killed him.

The two teens reached him, both panting lightly with effort. Tom’s eyes travelled upward, and he felt a little self-conscious in the pettiest way imaginable. Both of them were tall, especially the redhead, who absolutely towered. Tom hated being short, especially because it didn’t happen often. It knocked the wind right out of a good portion of the natural intimidation a Demon outside of the Underworld had.

“Hey, aren’t you Tom?” the lanky one asked, rubbing his shoulder where his backpack dug into it.

“Yeah,” Tom replied, practically begging his brain to supply him their names. When he came up empty, he asked tightly, “Aren’t you Marco’s friends?”

“Alfonzo and Ferguson,” Alfonzo said, gesturing at himself and the redhead.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Ferguson said with an easy grin, slinging an arm over Alfonzo’s shoulder. “Freshman year or something like that when you came to talk to Star? She’s visiting her parents, if you were wondering. Mind if we walk with you?”

Their ease around him was—surprising, for one. He wondered, briefly, just exactly what they had been through to desensitize them to nonhumans. Tom shook his head and kept going, letting Marco’s friends stand to his right. He honestly didn’t give a fuck about what they did, as long as they left him alone to wallow in his abject misery.

Alfonso and Ferguson kept on with their conversation as if a Demon wasn’t setting their pace, and Tom didn’t listen to what appeared to be an argument between the two. Instead, he walked and they walked, and their company (and ease) around him gradually pulled him away from the utter despair he was feeling and made him more conscious of his impromptu companions.

Abruptly, the argument happening next to him shifted. Tom snapped back to reality completely to watch Alfonzo’s face tense in anger and frustration at Ferguson’s set jaw.

“Whatever man, don’t come then,” Alfonzo said, jostling his backpack and redistributing its weight. “I’ll talk to the coach later. You go ahead and tell him what we talked about earlier. I need to plan tomorrow’s meeting.”

Alfonzo parted from them and headed back to the school. Tom and Ferguson both watched him leave.

“You play a sport?” Tom asked, refusing to let his mind wander to Pythia, to her own adventures with soccer, to her shitty point that didn’t even make sense.

“Yeah,” Ferguson said, clearly preoccupied with Alfonzo’s abrupt departure. “Football. I’m actually pretty good at it. Alfonzo can’t throw a ball to save his life. He is great at strategy, though. Unbelievable, the shit he comes up with. I haven’t seen him talk to a scout who didn’t ask for his contact info and promised to keep in touch.”

“So what were you fighting about that got him so mad?” Tom asked with little enthusiasm when Ferguson hesitated.

The redhead looked mildly uncomfortable.

“It’s complicated.” Ferguson stopped and turned to Tom. “Hey listen, despite what it looks like, we didn’t randomly run into you. I want to tell you something, before it’s too late. It’s probably even good that Alfonzo isn’t here right now, even though he wanted to be. He’s a little soft about these things.”

Tom stopped, internally juggling his desire to sink into the earth and never resurface and his desire to burn until there was nothing left inside of him to feel. He pushed his emotions away—it would do no good to dwell on them now. He focused on the human instead.

Age had changed him, and Tom guessed that he would change more as time passed. Tom admired and hated that aspect of humanity. Admired, because there was always room to grow; hated, because he couldn’t take part in it. Demons didn’t grow, didn’t age. Not naturally, anyway.

_(Pythia, thousands of miles away, frowns. You don’t know about Demons, and you don’t know what Tom means when he speaks so casually. She’ll scrounge up something to set the record straight; you’ve been very patient with her, and she’s been slacking on her self-appointed job.)_

Ferguson stood tall, a stubborn fierceness to his face.

“Marco told us to watch out for you,” he said, fists clenching. “Said he thought you’d be trying something soon. I don’t care how high you can turn up the heat. I can take a hit, and I can dish them right back out if need be. Star hasn’t just messed around with cars and bracelets after all this time, ya know.”

Tom’s inner struggle stopped dead in its tracks. For a brief moment, everything else fell away as the thrill of a threat took root inside of him.

Tom was impressed. The nasty grin he sent Ferguson’s way didn’t show it.

“If you’re asking for a fight,” Tom said, fangs on display, “I’m more than happy to indulge.”

Tom watched the tension in Ferguson’s body grow. He looked like a coil about to spring, and for a moment, Tom wanted nothing more than a good punch to the gut. It would certainly refocus him, though Ferguson might not like what would come next.

 _‘You’re a fucking idiot,’_ his mind whispered. _‘You should have known he’d find out. It’s better that Marco knew about it up front so he didn’t find out later and cut you off then. Find a way to fix this that doesn’t involve reflexively mauling one of his closest friends, if you can stop being a pathetic piece of garbage for about three seconds.’_

“But,” Tom said, not exactly softly, but a great deal more thoughtfully than he had been before, “I’m not actually here to kill you.”

“Then why _are_ you here?” Ferguson demanded, eyes sharp, upraising Tom. “Makes no sense why you’d show up after spying on them if it wasn’t for a reason. Makes no sense why you’d spy on them at all if it wasn’t for a reason.”

Tom wondered, for a moment, if he should tell anyone what he was doing. He had gone into this plan swearing that he wouldn’t tell a soul, but he’d also gone into it hating Marco, and he’d gone into it thinking no one would find out about his spying. It would do wonders to help his cause, if the people Marco trusted, trusted Tom. Maybe a change of tactics was in order…

Alternatively, he didn’t quite know what to make of this new Ferguson, who was confident in himself enough to show insecurity, who was more than ready to fight with him should Tom’s intentions fail to pass Ferguson’s scrutiny. Tom had expected an annoying, stupid child who barely knew how to keep out of trouble, not this near adult who actually seemed to have his wits about him. It was…off-putting, how little time it took humans to change into something almost unrecognizable.

Once upon a time, Tom would have dragged Ferguson into an alley and silenced him permanently, no debates, no moralistic meditation. Efficiency at its finest, by Demon standards. It would have been so easy to blame on other humans, because despite what he looked like, if Tom played dumb no one would think it was him. Especially if he killed in the traditional human way. It would be one less person standing between him and his prize. One less naysayer, one less human to convince that his intentions were good.

But these days, Tom was feeling sloppy. Marco made him sloppy. Humans were paranoid and untrusting and hard to predict and Tom was so in love with one it made him fucking sloppy.

He thought of Marco. He switched tactics.

“You’ve seen a lot, these past few years, haven’t you?” he said almost kindly.

Ferguson, a bit startled by the switch, quickly recovered.

“Enough to know that if someone like you walks into the school, there’s a damn reason for it,” Ferguson said. “A reason important enough to get the Prince of the Underworld moving is a reason for me to get damn ready to protect my friends from it.”

Tom nodded, feigning nonchalance. He watched Ferguson carefully. “Then you know that…Star isn’t infallible. Or you’d leave this to her.”

And _there_ —a split second of doubt clouded Ferguson’s face before it hardened into stubborn faith. “Our success rate’s never fallen below 100% where it counts.”

Tom let out a dry laugh.

“I appreciate you jumping to her defense, I really do. But she’s mortal, therefore, she can fail,” Tom said. “And despite what it looks like to you, her people don’t even live that much longer than your typical human. Mewmans live what, three thousand of your years, maybe a little more, _max_ , if they avoid dying in battle? Star’s already five hundred and eighty-one by your standards. She’s got some time, but in the end, she can be overwhelmed. Age or injury will trip her up, and what happens then?”

Ferguson growled, a tense sort of fear vibrating around him, “we’ve got two thousand years to find out then, don’t we?”

Tom hummed and didn’t say anything at all.

* * *

He walked to his third period a few minutes early and was first in after the bell rang. He sat in the back, ignoring the teacher’s alarmed look, and carelessly let fire fly from his hand onto the desk. It was the easiest way to magic things into existence, and after a second a binder full of paper and a pen were sitting in front of him. The teacher cleared his throat, and Tom looked up.

“Are…are you sure you’re in the right class?” he said, voice strained.

“Physics with Mestre?” Tom asked, glancing at his schedule.

The teacher nodded, a very pronounced fear in his eyes.

“Then yeah, I’m fine,” Tom said grouchily.

Students began trickling in as Tom went back to ignoring the teacher (and his feelings), eyes stuck between being glued to the door and dancing madly everywhere else. He wanted to meet Marco’s eye, to send something to him that would help convince him that Tom wasn’t here to hurt him, and at the same time he wanted to be invisible so that he’d be spared from the human’s ire.

Minutes passed by like each was scrambling over the previous to volt ahead of the others, and Tom felt dread claw up into his throat as it grew closer to the bell. Marco would be there soon.

Students were whispering to each other, and there weren’t many seats remaining as minutes became seconds until class began.

And then—like a hurricane, Marco Diaz burst into the room.

He took one look at Tom and walked right back out the door.

 _‘Serves you right, you nasty little shit,’_ his mind whispered.

* * *

In the burnt out rubble of a New York police station, there had been a breakthrough.

It had taken weeks, but forensics had finally located Lee Edward’s computer.

Edwards, from his hospital bed, had stressed that it had vital information—including the only expert testimony on the creature known as Tom the world had, straight from Jaron Davis himself. It had been made top priority to locate for its potentially invaluable information.

Edwards had stressed this information to Sam Baldino in particular, the lead on this particular investigation, which had prompted a renewed search for the device. Only a few hours ago had their searching yielded any results, and said results had been hauled off by Sam personally to some of the smartest people in the field to tinker with the old husk of a computer until it gave them what they wanted.

Sam had declined to sit when the tech specialists offered, had politely brushed off the offer they extended to go home and get some rest. Had pointedly ignored their requests for space and time. Had flat out rejected the idea that they should leave the room. Had refused to do anything but hover over the forensics specialists for hours, generally just being obnoxious and obtrusive (and completely aware of the behavior) as they waited for the answers that had been evading them for weeks.

Sam thought they had the right to do it. The forensics specialists thought otherwise, and were becoming increasingly vocal about it.

Clutching an already crumbled paper coffee cup a little more forcefully than before, Sam asked when the analysists would be done.

“When the damn thing’s fixed is when we’ll be done,” snapped an older member of the team, a sixty-something year old woman named Danielle who had already provided an answer every ten minutes for the past three hours and was beginning to match Baldino in stress and impatience.

Baldino scowled. Their brain immediately uploaded three computer based puns into their consciousness. They pettily discarded each one and tried to focus on the task at hand.

Sam Baldino had been a quiet kid with friends and a functioning social life and, despite that, still managed to grow up and exude the air of a sixty-something crotchety old geezer who had little better to do than heckle those around them. A nonbinary Mad-Eye Moody, except young(ish) and still in control of their faculty (and limbs). It was a point of ironic personal pride for them. It drove everyone else up a wall.

Sam had turned thirty-two last month and had been named one of the highest ranking officers in the FBI a year before. They were the right hand of FBI directly Flavia Perezosa, who was arguably the most hardworking director the FBI had ever come across. It was common knowledge that Sam Baldino was the logical choice to take her place when she retired, and that knowledge gave Sam an air of authority that was especially notable even amongst the permanent authority miasma the FBI was so good at maintaining. It kept people from showing their borderline manic annoyance whenever Sam opened their mouth.

Which, funnily enough, meant jack shit to the three tech specialists that had twenty years more experience than Sam and higher security clearance to boot. Consultant work had its advantages.

The situation had devolved into what could be described as a blind old coot yelling at some particularly persistent pigeons whose job was to try to lead said coot to safety, all the while wondering what would happen if they made an accidental wrong turn into oncoming traffic and left the coot to their own devices.

But enough of Sam, of pigeons, of angry consultants and authority miasma—a triumphant (relieved) shout from the youngest of the old consultants, merely a burst of noise in an otherwise quiet room, forced away the exposition I had been so carelessly strewing about this story and focused us on the plot.

_(Pythia rolls her eyes as she searches her library, annoyed at the turn the narrative takes without her guidance. The books are getting older the farther back she goes; soon, she’ll reach her tombs soon, and eventually, her scrolls.)_

Baldino was on him in an instant, and the analysist jumped at the intensity of their expression.

“What’s the word, son?”

The analysist side eyed Sam, like he wasn’t sure if the pun had been intentional.

“Perezosa told me you guys excel at what you do,” Sam continued, face a perfect mask of innocence.

“Sir,” the analysist said to his supervisor, eyes still on Baldino, something wild stirring around in them.

“Don’t give ‘em what they want,” the manager said, glaring at Sam. “Keep going.”

“There were several problems with the hardware of the device,” the analysist said, now red in the face and twitching with agitation when it became clear he was being messed with. “Not only was the cord itself burned, but the on button had melted onto the board underneath it and the battery had overheated drastically—”

“Okay, lots of power problems. Now let’s get to the power point,” Baldino said.

“ _SIR_ —”

“— _ignore it_ ,” seethed the manager.

“I was told we wouldn’t have to work under these conditions again,” the tech said. “It was the only stipulation I had. I was promised it would be adhered to this time.”

“Circumstances change, Charles,” the manager insisted to a distraught Charles. “It’s all about perspective. These commissions feed your children.”

Sam watched as Charles weighed how much he loved his children against how much he hated Sam.

“We can fix it,” Charles growled. “It’ll take twenty-four hours. Come back in twenty-four hours, and not a second sooner!”

Sam rolled their eyes.

“If it’s out of my control, if I have no alternatives, I guess I can leave this job to da-elite.”

A blood vessel nearly popped on Charles’s forehead.

Sam was forcefully ejected from the premise.  

* * *

Tom made sure he came to first period the next day late. He walked in and tried not to make eye contact with Marco, who was sitting in the middle of the room. Tom strategically took a seat in the far corner to be as unobtrusive to Marco as possible.

Apparently, he needed to work on being inconspicuous, as the moment he passed Marco’s seat, Marco stood and angrily pushed passed the desks he was surrounded by, leaving without a word.

Tom watched him go, feeling hopelessness and self-hatred the likes of which he had never experienced before. It was like someone had ripped his heart out. It was like he was dying.

_‘You reap what you sow, you colossal fuck up.’_

Tom miserably agreed.

* * *

Sam Baldino would have started singing, if they could hold a tune to save their life. The consulting techs had pulled every piece of information from the trashed computer they could find and slipped it all under his door in a folder so thick it almost didn’t fit.

Sam was fingering through it all now, organizing the data into piles based off of relevance. As they predicted, it didn’t take very long; information about ‘Tom’ was limited to only a few hours’ worth of data that had yet to be organized or condensed into anything worth analyzing.

Despite that, Sam wasn’t deterred from their search. They had been at this game a little too long to be put off by a drawback like this. It was all a matter of finding a lead to work off of, and if that failed, then finding another and another until one of them paid off. Patience was key, in these types of situations.

And despite how they acted, when the time came to put their nose to the grindstone and exercise some restraint, Sam was simply the best in the business.

* * *

Tom had no idea what to do. Marco wouldn’t so much as look at him. He wanted to curl up into a ball and die.

Tom was sitting in the back of the physics class whose teacher Marco had yet to formally meet, doodling aimlessly. The teacher had taken one look at him and decided he’d never call on Tom once, and that informal arrangement suited Tom. At the moment, Tom didn’t think he had it in him to play his own game and participate the way he’d planned.

He’d fucked up so bad. He always did.

He didn’t even know how to salvage the situation. He had to come up with a way to keep Marco and Star safe that didn’t involve either of them giving a shit about him.

A loud crash startled Tom from his thoughts. A second later, a roof crumbled, and Tom could faintly hear screaming. There wasn’t magic in the air, but Tom’s skin crawled, and he was grateful for an excuse to leave. Tom quickly stood and made his way out of the classroom before the teacher managed to get the rest of the class back in order.

Following the sounds of what was now obviously a fight, Tom found himself in a breezeway adjacent to an open courtyard. Some benches were on fire, some trees stooped awkwardly, but the most pressing concern was that Marco was currently crawling out of the rubble of a wall that had come down around him, groaning audibly.

He was surrounded by Monsters of various sizes, all taking orders from a very small, birdlike Monster with a skull on his head. The birdlike Monster was shouting, a triumphant glint in his eye, and it made Tom’s blood boil watching him sneer down at Marco, who was struggling to stand after the assault.

 _‘Fuck no, fuck NO, I won’t let some fucking Monster touch a single strand of hair on his head, I’ll_ **KILL _BEFORE_** _—’_

“—Butterfly will come soon enough,” the bird was crooning, “if her precious friend is taken from right under her—”

A pillar of fire between them and Marco made the Monsters jump back, tensing and twitching as Tom stepped from the flames, nothing but teeth and fangs, an unearthly glow from his magic surrounding him. The snarl on his face showed fury so potent anyone who made eye contact with him shuddered and tore their faces away from his.

_‘—DARES LAY A HAND ON HIM, I’LL HAVE HIM CHOKING ON HIS OWN BLOOD, I’LL SEE HIM TORN APART—’_

Marco’s legs gave way when Tom appeared in front of him. The Monsters jumped back, their fear egging Tom’s rage on. It felt so good, not to feel helpless, he’d been feeling helpless and confined and useless—

 _‘—WON’T TAKE HIM FROM ME, FROM THE̢̬̤͔̫̹͌͋͗̿̂ͨ ͖ͤ̊P̨̯̠ͣ͛̎R̜̖̻͚̳̫̺̝͎ͨͣ̾̓ͯ͒̑I̢̪̼͙͈͛͊ͩ̽̐̓̇͞N̺̞̹̘͇̊͂͂̽͊̒ͣ͛C͕̥̖̳͔̓̈́Ë͈̺̝̮͖̪̽̍ͬ̆͝ ̟̟̍ͫ̒̀͑͆Ȧ̴̢͙͖̙͎̯̬ͨ͋̕Nͪͯͩ͏̩̜̤̗̖D̴̡̟̙̟̟̪̝̭̖̄ͤ̊ͧ̒͌̈͊ ̯̳͇́ͫ͞H̨̟͍̘̟͕̘͍͈͆̅E̶̫̹͉̻ͮ̑̆̈́ͥ̍ͭ̌̕I̝͎͓̠ͩ͆͟Ṟ̼̌̾̐͡ ̩ͦ̊̓͞Ḁ̥̩͆ͮ̕͡P͚͕̜̰̩̽ͯ́P͍͉̙̹̲̞̔ͨ͂̆͑̿͌͟A̻͓̹̯̱̟̦͍̾͛ͮ͊̎͠R̻̞͖̖̣ͥ̇̀̽̉̏̒ͩ͞E̵͚̻͚̤̪̘͕̦ͨN̷͇͍̲̙̪̱̊̏͑̍ͨͧ̾̊͘͢ͅT̹̳̈́̌̈́͆ͭ̋̉ ̵̀͑̂̇ͤ͂ͫ̆҉̪_ _—’_

The little birdlike Monster was yelling nonsense at Tom, who was very quickly about to burn all of them until they were nothing more than piles of ash that he would kick until they spread into nothing.

But no—maybe Tom would be patient while he orchestrated their demise. He’d show them exactly how foolhardy it was to stand against the Prince of the Underworld like he’d done when Monsters first rose against Demons, only this time, exile would be a mercy so tender these Monsters would give their last breaths for the most oppressive isolation Tom could find for them. Yes, burning them to a crisp would be too neat…to efficient. He’d be sloppy, because Marco made him sloppy. He’d show them the anguish of a slow burn.  

“It’s a Demon!” a Monster shouted, and out rose an uproar so chaotic Tom could barely distinguish individual panic from the mob’s. 

“Shut up!” their leader cried, panic clear on his face. “I said shut up, you idiots! We outnumber him twenty to one! We can take him!”

Amazingly, the Monsters settled slightly, trepidation thick in the air. Tom laughed, high pitched and wild, and they jumped back in fright.

“But boss!” a Monster said, voice quivering, “He’s a Demon! He has magic!”

“And so will we, once we have Butterfly’s wand!” their leader yelled, false bravado an instant from snapping. “The boy is injured, grab him and run!”

Tom widened his stance and shot them a toothy grin.

“I should have known a bunch of filthy Monsters were only after magic,” Tom growled. “How absolutely pathetic. You aren’t taking _him_.”

_‘—KILL THEM KILL THEM RIP THEM UP BURN THEM RUIN THEM DESTROY BURN KILL—’_

With a wave of his hand they were surrounded by fire, and Tom sneered at the ugly looks on their faces. The fire felt so good, letting himself go felt so good, he should have tracked some Monsters down and let loose ages ago—

Flames danced from his fingers and rained down on the Monsters, who started screaming—

They were on fire, he was on fire—everything was burning, like it had burned in the clearing, so beautiful and pure and _right_ —

He wanted to fight, to beat them into the ground, to burn them and break their bones and—

“TOM, STOP!” Marco howled, petrified, _horrified_ from behind him, and it was a forest fire being blown out like a candle. Reality crashed down around him. What was once a great fire inside of him had been doused so thoroughly he couldn’t even keep his flames around the Monsters in front of him.

_‘Oh, no.’_

He’d gone too far. In front of this particular human who already hated and feared him, he’d gone too far, shown too much of his real self, shown Marco what a horrific, monstrous creature he was. The one thing he had feared most, happening before he could so much as borrow a pencil or ask to share lunch with him…  

_‘Repent, you sick, dirty thing. He sees you as you truly are. Repent, before he destroys you in the only way that matters, prostrate yourself at his feet and BEG—’_

Tom didn’t turn, genuinely afraid at what he’d see in Marco’s eyes if he looked at him right now. If he couldn’t even face himself, how could he face anyone?

Why did he do this? Why did he do this? Why did he fucking do this stupid, senseless—

“Let them leave,” Marco said, voice shaking, but there was a strength of will within him that made Tom _yearn,_ at that moment…

Tom nodded jerkily, face stony but emotions running rampart as the Monsters watched him, rage and pain and fear in their eyes. Several of them were supporting those that had been burned particularly badly, but Tom hadn’t quite killed any of them yet. The smell of putrid, burned flesh hung heavily in the air.

Tom could only watch as the Monsters retreated. Half of him wished he had incinerated them, the other half wished he’d never so much as raised a finger against them. He wanted to stop being alive. He wanted Marco to forgive him. He wanted to disappear.

“Ludo, get out of here before he stops listening to me,” Marco said, urgency thick in his voice.

_‘He’s scared of you, and he should be, he should be you sick, perverted creature, so sickening, so pathetic—’_

The birdlike Monster, Ludo, looked back and forth from Tom to Marco before scrambling for his dimensional scissors. Tom watched numbly as the Monsters scrambled into a hastily cut portal.

Though Tom wouldn’t know it, uncharacteristically, Ludo did not leave first. Instead, he hovered close to the portal, ready to jump through if need be, eyes still on Marco and Tom.

“I—can send you somewhere safe from the Demon,” Ludo said hesitantly, ready to bolt at the first sign of Tom moving.

“You were going to kidnap me five minutes ago,” Marco said coldly, but Tom knew he was considering it.

_‘Break yourself, break everything, so he may look upon you and feel something other than hatred.’_

Ludo nodded shakily, eyes still twitching from Tom to Marco.

 “You’d be safer with us than him,” Ludo said.

_‘He’s going to go with that fucking Monster, that shit on your shoes, to get away from you, stop him STOP HIM—’_

A growl escaped Tom’s throat before he could stop it, deep and unearthly, and Ludo yelped and dashed through the portal. It closed instantly.

The breezeway was now empty, save for Tom and Marco.

Nothing made a sound; no tree creaked, no bird’s wing beat, no ant took a single step. The auditory void unnerved Tom like nothing else had ever been able to.

Tom waited, shaking wildly. He waited for Marco to demand that he leave. Waited for him to shout. Waited for him to call him a monster and make good on his threats from earlier in the week.

Behind him, Marco was twisting out of the rubble he was partially covered in, grunting softly as the debris scraped against him. Still, Tom didn’t turn, even when Marco let out a low hiss as he hit a limb against something sharp.

_‘He’s hurt, asshole, he’s hurt and it’s your fucking fault—’_

“If you move,” Marco panted, “if you so much as twitch, until I tell you otherwise, I’ll kill you.”

And Tom, falling into pieces, eyes steaming wildly, could at least do that much. Could hold himself together until Marco let him fall apart.

_‘You DESERVE this, you deserve to be destroyed, and it’s only apt that HE be the one to strip you of everything, of what makes you special—’_

“I’m immortal, Marco,” Tom said softly, brokenly. “You’d have to take that from me first.”

Impulse made him say it, but he hooked onto the idea and held it tightly. If Marco wanted him to die that badly, at the very least, Tom’s death could at least be worth something to Marco, if he couldn’t mean anything to him in life. He wanted to die. It would give Marco something useful, and he wanted to fucking die and stop feeling and finally be free—

“What are you talking about?” Marco said, fear laced in his voice.

Tom stood still, eyes on the place the portal had been sitting mere seconds ago. His chest was aching with how badly he wanted to turn, but he couldn’t face Marco now, couldn’t bear to see the hate in his eyes. Tom would grant himself one small mercy: to never live to see proof that Marco Diaz irreparably hated him.

_‘I hope he kills you, I hope it’s agony when he rips it from you—’_

“It’s a small, red stone sitting behind my third eye,” Tom said, half sobbing. “If you took it and ate it, I’d be mortal. Then you could kill me.”

“Shut up!” Marco yelled, immediately coughing after. “And _don’t move!_ ”

Tom, who had no intention of moving, stiffened.

 _‘He’s thinking about it,’_ his mind whispered gleefully. _‘He’s thinking about it!’_ Tom choked back a sob.

Marco took a deep, calming breath. Tom waited for death.

“This is sick, Tom,” Marco said, voice cracking. “What am I supposed to do, just rip out your eye? Would it hurt? Would you bleed?”

“It doesn’t really matter in the long run,” Tom whispered shakily. Yes, it would hurt. Yes, it would bleed. He’d bleed out, eventually. Then it really wouldn’t matter. He deserved it.

He could hear Marco pull himself upright and limp to his left, slowly circling Tom. When Tom could see him out of the corner of his eye, he screwed them all shut—he wouldn’t look at Marco, he’d fall apart if he did—

 _‘This is what you get, you filthy, vile,_ perverted _creature. Fly to close to the sun, and you burn. And you were always so good at burning, weren’t you?’_

Marco was standing right in front of him, he could feel it in his bones, and Tom _ached_ for him—

“You’d really let me?” Marco hissed, voice panicked and flighty and Tom could do nothing but open his third eye, the only eye he had that could see anything but what was right in front of his face.

_‘Lucky you, you coward, that the third eye is as useless as the rest of you—’_

The heat from the steam rising from his tear ducts was hurting his eyes, but he kept them closed, holding only the third eye open so that Marco would have an easier time ripping it from Tom’s head.

“Please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

But words were failing Tom like they never had before. He didn’t even know where to start begging for forgiveness. His eyes were leaking so fast that tears started rolling down his face before they steamed, leaving angry red marks on his face.

“Stop making excuses,” Marco said softly, clearly thinking about Tom’s words.

_‘Can’t believe you’re letting it end before you even started, so typical of you shithead, knocked out in the first round, no wonder he can’t fucking stand you—’_

Marco’s hands, shaky and covered in dirt (and scared and bloody, no thanks to Tom’s late arrival) gently cupped Tom’s temples, and Marco let out a low whine as he rested a thumb on either side of the third eye.

“You aren’t lying,” Marco whispered, voice somewhere between fear and awe. “You’d let me do it.”

_‘Can’t protect him, couldn’t ever protect either of them, couldn’t even live long enough for Star to see you like this, bet she’d get a kick out of it—’_

Tom’s whole face hurt. He couldn’t stop himself from shaking. God—such fear flowed through him, such guilt, such anger and love and hurt and emptiness and—

“Yeah,” Tom breathed, barely able to spit the words out, “I deserve it.”

Tom reached up, hands finding Marco’s, and Tom marveled at being able to touch them, to hold them, before he touched his fingers over Marco’s thumbs, ready to help him dig out the third eye if that’s what Marco needed of him…

And it was like standing on the edge of a cliff and leaning over the edge with only the wind holding him up; any moment, it would die down and he’d fall, and on the way down Tom would wonder what he did to deserve it for the few fleeting seconds it had made him feel like he was soaring…

Marco ripped his hands away like he’d been burned.

“No one deserves that,” Marco said, voice raising. “No one is completely evil. You might have even heard me say it, you creep, but I still believe it. No one’s completely evil. Not even you.”

The smallest whisper of hope, a single candle against a sea of darkness, curled in the pit of Tom’s stomach.

“I’m too mad at you to talk to you right now,” Marco said. “But when I calm down, I want answers.”

Tom couldn’t help it any longer; he opened his eyes.

Marco was staring up at him, hands clenched firmly to his sides, eyes blazing. There was a fierceness to him that Tom couldn’t describe. His hair was messy, his face covered in soot and dirt, but in that moment he was the most beautiful thing Tom had ever seen.

“Anything, Marco,” Tom said reverently. “I’ll give you anything.”

Marco’s eyes flittered up to Tom’s third, and his tense expression relaxed ever so slightly. Tom couldn’t even feel his heart beating in his chest—that is what hope from Marco Diaz did to him.

“I’ll hold you to that.” Marco was serious, eyes hard, stance ready in case Tom looked like he was going to attack.

Tom could only smile at the sight of him. Words couldn’t describe what he was feeling right now.

“And I’ll hold you to _that_ ,” he said through tears, wondering if this was what mercy felt like.

* * *

Pythia sits, a large scroll in her hands.

“It took me a while to find this,” she says, gesturing with the scroll. “It’s not perfect, and some of the information is outdated or flat out wrong, but it’s better than nothing.”

She places it on the desk in front of her.

“You don’t have to read it,” she continues. “It’s only about the past. But I think there’s value in knowing what was. It makes here and now a little more interesting.”

Pythia stands and wipes dust from her brow.

“If you’d rather not read it, it’s okay,” she says with a smile. “But if you would like to, I’d rather open it myself. It’s fragile. I’m sure you wouldn’t do anything to it, but I’d rather be safe…”

With great care, she peels open the scroll. The paper crinkles while she opens it, and in some places, it’s so worn you can scarcely make out the words upon close scrutiny.

“We’re done talking about Tom for a while,” she says. “Done with Marco and Sam Baldino too. There’s nothing left to tell, today. The narrative needs a break.”

Pythia glares, not at you.

“It’s rather sloppy, when I’m not watching it. It gets sporadic. Things get crazy. They stop making sense.”

She sighs.

“Well, go ahead and make yourself comfortable, if you want. I’ve got some chores that I’ve been neglecting to take care of.”

Pythia turns and walks off, feet silent on the wood floor.

You look at long scroll on the table. It’s very wordy, and the handwriting looks almost urgent, like someone was under a lot of stress when they were writing.

“Might as well skim through it,” you decide aloud.

You always hated supplemental reading when your professor gave it to you, but let’s see how you fare when the source is a little less supercilious.

You kneel at the table and begin:

**An Abridged History of the Underworld and its Mechanics**

_Introduction_

The Underworld has memories that stretch back before Time, intermingling with the very genesis of the universe. It is the only world [more on the decision to use the word “world” to describe an entire plane of reality later] that finds itself perched precariously out of the time stream and as such, is not easily accessible to other beings. Before the invention of the dimensional scissors, Old Magic was the only means to access the Underworld. Such Magic is known to be full of pitfalls and traps that most beings from the Overworld do not know how to steer through; even when they do, they still succumb to the temptations of that which they had brought forth. Orpheus needed only face forward until he returned from the Underworld to take back his lover, and yet could not keep his eyes from wandering during those final paces back to freedom. The Underworld is why magic is possible in all other worlds, yet there is still much to be discovered about the relationship between magic, mortals, and Demons.

_How the Underworld Functions_

The Overworld and the Underworld are shaped very differently. Where the Overworld (henceforth to be referred to as “the universe”) is made of trillions of planets and a large amount of empty pace, the Underworld functions as though it were a single world that stretches out infinitely, only possible because it does not exist inside of the time stream, implying that it is not expanding. The Underworld was, in the milliseconds after the Big Bang happened, the size it would be until existence ends.

The Underworld functions as a basement to the universe’s house. As a basement, it is good for one thing: storage. Magic, precisely, is what is stored in the Underworld. Magic is highly volatile and, in its purest forms, very harmful to its surroundings. It ravages the area it resides in whenever its concentration is too high, and the Underworld is fiery and barren as a result. The Underworld is nearly drowning in the magic it possesses and is desperate to spread it out. Magic doesn’t simply vanish once it is used, either. Rather, it disperses from where it is channeled into a form of the caster’s choice and can be reused many times.

There is only one place magic can go to disperse: the universe. The way magic seeps into the universe is similar to [how magma escapes from the Earth’s mantle and crust](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMtuTfAqAbo%20).  There are magical hotspots that let magic escape from the Underworld into the universe, and in those places where magic is heavily concentrated, nearby planets find that harnessing magic comes much more easily than it does to planets that sit away from those hotspots. Unfortunately, these hotspots are slow to leak magic and tend not to spread it very far from a natural channel. This leaves magic [more on the few known properties of magic later] with a problem: how does it disperse?

**Demons were created in the Underworld by magic and serve a great cosmic good: channeling magic from the Underworld to the universe. Demons are created knowing that this is ultimately what they need to do, and more than that, they enjoy doing it. Demons benefit from magic, and magic benefits from Demons.**

Before the advent of the deal, Demons primarily absorbed as much magic as they could, then travelled to the universe and expelled it. This process was lengthy and barely put a dent in the vast magical reserves of the Underworld.

It was Xander the Proud who experimented with ways to heighten the carrying capabilities of Demons twenty million years ago, and while his initial work was nothing more than constant failures, he did discover something monumental about magic: that, in fact, it responded to his summons. Thus, he spent the next two hundred years of his life determining the circumstances in which magic responded to Demons.

The sacrifices of Xander did immeasurable good for the study of magic, and from his experiments came several others of prominence through the centuries. Chik of Paragol learned through her channeling experiments that magic required intent (or purpose) in order to change itself or its surroundings.

Demons found a way to channel great amounts of magic out of the Underworld to the universe: the deal. **At its simplest form, a deal can be thought of as a temporary channel in which a Demon can bring a large amount of magic to the universe. For the channel to open, it will need to serve a purpose**. This is where magic leaves any amount of logic behind.

From what leading experts can tell, the amount of magic moved into the universe by a Demon preforming a deal depends on two factors: level of desire and level of justified need. Note here that this ‘calculation’ focuses on the net amount of magic moved, not the total magic required to fulfil the request. These two amounts can be very different, and Demons must worry about both of them for different reasons. Net amount of magic moved is considered because a Demon’s objective is to move the most amount of magic possible, and the total magic required is considered because all Demons have a limited amount of magic they can move at a time, and because of that it is not in their power to make certain deals. This means that some Demons are capable of things others are not capable of.

When some being accepts a deal and makes a demand of magic, magic itself decides how much is needed in order to fulfill the request. Immortality, for instance, has a high level of desire but a low level of justified need. Thus, granting someone immortality [more on immortality later] only displaces AT MOST half of the potential amount of magic it could displace at once. **The total amount of magic that can be displaced at a time depends on the Demon’s bloodline and personal power.**

When Demons are trying to siphon away magic, they tend to avoid those non-Demons who have a request without a high level of justified need or desire. If you wanted to make a deal in which you received a tuna sandwich, no Demon would want to waste their own magical channeling efficiency [more on that later] by granting that request because it is a waste of their literal lives, and because it would not actually do the Underworld any good.

_The creation of Demons_

Demons are not born like any other species is. Magic creates them as it needs them. In the beginning, when the store of magic in the Underworld was overwhelming, magic created the first Demons, the old lines, to better spread itself. Whenever the old lines had a child, that child only ever existed through magic. For example, the Queen found her child in a great fire and knew he was the product of the bond between herself and her second King.

That is not to say that Demons do not experience lust or cannot act on those feelings.

 **When the old lines began to receive children, those children did not grow like children in the universe did. As they began to understand magic and channel it, their bodies adapted to handle more of it. This is the only type of growth in the Underworld. At a certain point in the average Demon’s life, there is no way for them to be any more efficient with the magic they channel. At this point, they have reached full maturation and are considered adults. It is also at this point when they slowly begin to be less efficient with the magic they have access to, and so slowly begin to die. A Demon dies when they can no longer channel magic through them on their own.** This is the preferred method of execution in the Underworld.

Because Demons remain in the Underworld for the majority of their existence, there is no point in channeling magic closer to their homes. Deals would make the concentration of magic too potent and would likely raze everything in the immediate vicinity. Demons can use magic freely without a deal, and the result is usually less impressive, but also less costly to a Demon’s life, directly or otherwise. Deals in the Underworld tend not to end well, and thus Demons don’t make Deals in the Underworld unless it is extremely necessary to do so.

But there is a potential loophole in that logic. What if two Demons were to meet outside of the Underworld to make a deal? It has happened before, with the same results each time: execution by the Royal Family for treason against the Underworld. Deals between Demons causes a lot of trouble for the Underworld, where peace is tenuous most of the time. 

In summary, Demons move magic from the Underworld to the Universe using the deal. Demons do not all have the same potential; some Demons are better at channeling (and by extension, using) magic than others. Depending on the desire, different levels of magic are siphoned into the universe, meaning that Demons are careful to make sure that the Deals they complete are worth the time and energy they put into them. The more a Demon uses magic or makes deals, the less efficient they are at it, and the closer to death they become. This also means that every time they make a deal, they are capable of bringing in less magic into the Universe than they were before. The Royal Family plays a special role in the Underworld which will be looked into further in the next section.

_The Royal Family_

**The Royal Family (and more specifically, only the side of the family that was born into, not joined in marriage) can channel magic so well that they are born with immortality.** Expert opinions as to why this is the case vary and each explanation has its fair share of inconsistencies. A Royal birth happens so rarely that not much is known about how Royal children come into existence. No matter how well a Demon can channel magic, there is no way for them to create immortality, even through a deal with a non-Demon.

 **The Queen and the Prince were born with their immortality, and are the only two beings that can create it through magic.** Magic deigned that this be so. The King was chosen by the Queen, and as such, immortality was bestowed upon him the way it usually is through a Royal marriage: the last King is held prostate and has his immortality taken from him.

**Queen Lilian held her first husband, Dantalion, down while her chosen second husband (Dantalion’s younger brother, Malphas) took the immortality straight from his chest. Malphas proceeded to eat Dantalion’s immortality, which always takes the form of a solid red stone in an immortal body. Its location is different in each immortal.**

The royal line only marries from the most ancient blood to ensure that heirs will be powerful enough that they will be born with immortality. This process is so rare that little else is known about it.

Older lines were around when magic needed more powerful Demons to channel it, and so older lines are naturally better at channeling great amounts of magic at once. Younger lines, while still very powerful, are less efficient with their magic and cannot create everything the older lines can. Older lines live longer than younger lines. The implications of this will be explored in the next section.

_History and Politics of the Underworld_

There are two planes of existence. The Underworld exists on the lower plane and was once comprised of Monsters and Demons. The higher plane is where 99.9999999% of living beings can be found, leaving the Underworld with a measly .0000001% of the universal population. This number, while seemingly insignificant, leaves the Underworld with a massive population in its largely uninhabitable plane.

There is not much diversity in the Underworld’s population. Magic created Demons on purpose—to help spread itself throughout the universe. Demons were slow to establish order amongst themselves, but they did eventually develop an order in which the strongest, most proficient magic wielders held the most social and political power. **The strongest tended to be from certain family lines, and over time, the Underworld developed into a monarchy in which the strongest family ruled firmly over the others, which divided into clans. Each clan is headed by an ancient family and leads clans of less power.** The chain of command in a clan goes from the strongest, most ancient bloodline to the weakest bloodline. In essence, the Underworld functions as a coalition of states that take orders from the ruling monarchy. States can and do have conflicts, and it is rare that the Royal Family will step in unless conflicts interfere with the order they have established and maintained in the Underworld.

This would be the end of it, if Demons were the only things created by magic. **Monsters sprang forth nearly the same time as Demons, but these creatures were not created with a purpose. Rather, Monsters fed on magic, and because magic cannot be broken down, all they did was move it to places where it caused more harm to the Underworld.** While not malicious in nature, this wreaked havoc amongst the Underworld’s population. It is not in the nature of Demons to forgive.

Class conflicts arose between Monsters and Demons. Monsters, the comparatively larger and less powerful population, did not possess the same level of magical potential, physical prowess, or vast age even the weakest Demon was guaranteed, and as such, when resources became too scarce for both factions [Demons and Monsters], they began to split and war with each other.

 **The Royal Family eventually decided that Monsters, rather than be captured and killed, would be sent to magic dense planets in the Universe where they couldn’t harm the inhabitants of the Underworld with their lust for magic.** This decision was wildly unpopular as it was seen by many as too lenient a sentence for what Monsters had done to the Underworld.

Deals were struck with several planets. The Royal Family offered great power to the rulers of the planets that agreed to house Monsters in the Universe. Whether Monsters deserved this uprooting or not remains debatable. Magic dense planets were nothing like the Underworld, but they did offer Monsters some form of consolation when ousted from their homes. On those magic dense planets, sometimes Monsters took over completely, sometimes they mingled with the population quite well, and sometimes the population despised these interdimensional intruders more than Demons did.

_Demon Culture_

Demons, it should be said, are not like other species. **Empathy does not come naturally to them. Neither does patience, kindness, or love.** It is very rare a Demon is ruled by the more altruistic emotions. Demons are, from an outsider’s perspective, cruel. While parents raise, care for, and love their children, should the need arise, they would not hesitate to strike them down should that be what is most beneficial for the continued survival of the parents. Demons are not without emotional ties; they are just able to cut them should they begin to be inconvenient or potentially damaging.

While this sounds, in theory, nothing more than cynical pragmatism, this culture wide selfishness (in the most clinical definition of the word) has created a world in which no Demon trusts their neighbor not to kill them, where no Demon walks without a weapon, and where violence is so normalized a peaceful day cannot be trusted.

Even amongst family units, where betrayal happens much more rarely, harshness is a very near constant in most homes for fear of seeming weak (and therefore, an easy target) to other family members.

Even when it seems like it would be in an entire clan’s best interest to trust each other, even when they would be stronger united, it is simply not in the nature of Demons to resist the selfishness inside of them. Demons want to dominate, to win, and they have very little control over themselves or their actions when something whips them into a frenzy. 

**The Royal Family, as always, appears to be an exception to this cultural rule. While not much is known about the inner workings of the family, there seems to be an unshakable level of trust and affection between the King, Queen, and Prince. This would explain why the Prince, despite being of age and maturity to do so for thousands of years, has not challenged his parents for the Underworld’s thrown.**

_Demons and their Powers_

Demons have the strongest connection to magic out of any sentient species. They wield it naturally and in large amounts. Because they have such abundant access to magic, learning to finesse and control their powers was never necessary. **This lack of control is mirrored perfectly in the average Demon’s temperament. As a rule, the more powerful a Demon is, the less control they have over themselves and their magic.**

**This inherent lack of control is combated by higher desires and will; Demons are not mindless and they can see when their destructive tendencies are hurting their standing or their fulfillment of goals. With effort, even the more aggressive Demons can control themselves.**

Besides wielding magic, which is in itself extremely versatile and can do almost anything a wielder desires, Demons are occasionally born with other gifts. These gifts are usually hereditary, although their origin is unknown. **The heir to the thrown always inherits a third eye** that has some minor unknown abilities, and certain Demons are known for their powers of prophecy and telekinesis.

Some of the rarest gifts known to Demons are those born with elemental powers. Only four are known to exist in the Underworld: two who can spontaneously bend earth, one who can create and direct lightning, and perhaps the most famous one, who can bend flames to his will. The first three have long since perished, time being the one thing most fall victim to. The last is, of course, the Prince himself, who learned from these other elemental Demons long before they vanished from this plane.

Other aspects of Demon biology show that Demons are naturally strong, resilient creatures capable of feats most other species would gawk at. There are limits to their abilities, though, and phenomenon they are naturally weak against. **Magical inhibitors can keep most Demons contained, and anti-magic symbols and sigils can injure and even kill a Demon depending on the situation at hand.**

_Immortality and Time Travel: Degrees of Control_

The curse of immortality takes a level of power only the Royal Family can create. As such, they are obviously the only Demons who can grant immortality. However, the act of creating immortality takes very little actual control—it is as easy to create as it is to breathe in.

Be reminded that there is a difference between the input and output of magic—what takes much power to create does not necessarily displace as much magic as it takes in; magic, as stated earlier, does not disappear, but it does change forms. While immortality demands a huge amount of magic to create, it does not permanently displace very much in return. The mechanics of immortality are such that granting immortality merely connects a mortal to the Underworld’s magic, which in turn keeps them alive. The magic stays in the Underworld, except for comparatively small portions that are left in the universe when the Deal is made. This is only one of the reasons that the Royal Family refrains from granting immortality.

At this point, one may be wondering why time travel was mentioning in this section at all. Time travel seems to require the opposite of what granting immortality takes: the smallest bit of magic and a degree of control so precise the rest of this section can only be spoken of hypothetically.

If some non-Demon were to ask a Demon to send them back in time, a Demon would have to say no. Not only does this request displace LESS magic than a tuna sandwich, the magical control required is so demanding that Demons aren’t capable of granting it.

Ironically, such a huge gift could hypothetically be granted by species that do not have very much access to magic, as that drawback has forced them to learn to siphon and control very precise amounts of magic to make up for the lack of it they have had at their disp—

The scroll abruptly ends. Very carefully, you lift it up. It is blank on the other side. Pythia walks into your view, a mysterious smile on her lips.

“If you want to know more, I can find another scroll,” she offers. “But you really need to ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW include: character wants to die/suicidal thoughts; graphic descriptions of violence; gore, specifically about the eye (nothing actually happens but it is discussed); intrusive inner thoughts that are very violent and push a character over the edge; depression is displayed to a degree as well; some Monsters get set on fire but I'm not that graphic in the descrpition of it in my opinion (still, worth mentioning)
> 
> I can't think of any else right now but if you read it and something upsets you PM me and I'll add the trigger to this list. Also if that happens I'm very sorry and will apologize again if it happens. 
> 
> On another note, sorry this took so long. 
> 
> On ANOTHER note, I haven't been watching the new Star V FOE episodes, but I watched the Tom and Marco one and I was kinda upset by it. So basically this is now canon divergence after season 1. 
> 
> Also, I fucking hate Ferguson and Alfonzo in the series so far, so I'm revamping them. They aged into better people. 
> 
> To the one person who commented on Tom's characterization being weird: you're right; I haven't been writing him like he's portrayed in other works. His emotions are violent and messy and all over the place. If you thought that he was stable, I'm afraid that I must inform you that he's not :') Hopefully things will improve for him later.


	5. Running in Circles

Establishments like this one were very hard to come by, and it had taken Toffee a considerable amount of time and energy to set up this one the way he had.

Monsters hadn’t been able to truly gather en masse since they had been banished from the Underworld and had long since grown into factions separated by the vast distances between the planets they were exiled to.

But Toffee was clever, perhaps cleverer than anyone gave him credit for. It had taken months of careful planning, and then of even more careful wording, to gather the leaders of Monsterdom to one place to speak for the first time in millennia. About sixty percent of them had responded—an enormously successful amount, given all of the givens. So much time had passed since they had been in contact that there were many reasons Toffee wouldn’t have received a reply. More than likely, a non-reply meant that Monsters had become content with their living situation and saw no reason to change it, but there was always a possibility that they were simply too afraid to meet together or there was no one present to receive the invitation in the first place.

Regardless—the amount in attendance was a phenomenal sign. There were no Monsters left who remembered being exiled—their species had not been granted the same longevity as their cousins—but Magic had blessed them with an aching desire to be in her presence and the numbers to potentially gain her favor again.

Toffee looked around the bar that had allowed this meeting to take place, ignoring the peeling paint and stained floors. He scanned the gathering crowd, eyes following those that came in later than the invitation had asked. If there was one thing Toffee hated, it was being late. He noted three stragglers: a short, frazzled looking giraffe; another lizard whose hair was much greyer than Toffee’s; and a huge hooded figure whose presence sent a chill down Toffee’s spine. Toffee averted his eyes from the three, mind whirling in intense thought. Thirty seconds later, he had a plan. He strode to the center of the small stage the bar reserved for demonstrations of flexibility and grace, or so the seedy little bar proclaimed on several old splintered signs with worn out letters hanging on the walls.

His presence evoked silence.

“My friends,” Toffee began, eyes sweeping over the crowd before him, “I thank you all for making the journey here tonight. If you would: make yourselves comfortable. Remove your hoods; relax. We are all allies here.”

The crowd broke into a light murmur as hoods fell back. Toffee watched them all reveal themselves, paying special attention to the hooded straggler. As Toffee suspected, his removed hood revealed another monster, regal but just as ferocious as any other present.

“I will speak to you plainly and freely,” Toffee began, and the crowd silenced itself immediately. “We as a species have been subjugated. We have been cast aside and humiliated by our own sister species. We have been ejected from our proverbial Eden, all because we did not fit neatly into the Demon’s chaotic world.”

Here, he sneered. “I have watched Demons torment our family. I have watched them laugh and mock our kind. They hunt us for sport, they torture our children, and they do so with a smile on their faces! We are a proud race, and it is time that we return to the Demons who have treated us so callously the same pain they so gleefully brought down upon us.”

“What in the name of Magic are you proposing, Toffee?” someone from the back growled, hackles raised. The crowd bust into murmurs. Toffee frowned slightly.

“What I am proposing,” Toffee said carefully, and the crowd quieted again, “is that we are being treated unfairly. Cruelly. _Demonically_ , in all senses and implications of word choice.”

“And yet, there is no living being in my kingdom that has suffered a single minute from demonic retribution,” another voice, this time coming from the opposite end of the room, joined in.

“Nor has mine!”

“Nor has _mine_!”

The din was growing, and the meeting was rapidly growing out of control. Some monsters rose to get up and leave, until—

“ **SILENCE!** ” One of the latest monsters to the meeting yelled in a voice so powerful it nearly shook the room.

The auditory void did something to Toffee that he hadn’t felt was possible anymore: it unnerved him.

Content that his newly captured audience was paying attention, the monster continued, looking smug:

“That you don’t even know that you are suffering speaks volumes of the tortures done unto your people.” The monster looked around the room. “Have you ever even felt Magic before? Do you know how perfect its harmony between Monsters is? I know that before the Exodus, Monsters fought to the death for their place in the Underworld. Did you ever stop to wonder why?”

“And this,” Toffee said, regaining control in an instant, secretly incensed that his meeting was commandeered by an unknown factor—especially this particular one! “This is why _I_ have called us together. My friends, it is time once again for Monsters to live in their rightful place: the Underworld, where Magic is so potent we will never live without her presence again.”

“You speak of suicide!” Someone shouted, “one Demon can wreak havoc on our armies! Their people are united against us! Their rulers are immortal! What would you have us do?”

Another shouted, “no amount of Magic is worth it if the price is as high as the one you are demanding! Look around us! We are not living in paradise, but then again, maybe we were not meant to! We are content, and you want to stir up trouble where trouble need not be!”

“We were banished, but not without reason. What are our lives worth if we spend them like gluttons? What are we worth if we make nothing for ourselves?”

“No one is arguing that we were wronged! But I believe that we have moved on from it, have grown and made things that we never would have been able to accomplish without that hardship! We are free from the Demon’s grasp! They can’t touch us anymore!”

And as Toffee was watching his meticulously planned meeting fall apart, as Monsters were getting up and slamming their chairs against tables, as they murmured to themselves and looked at him with distrust—Toffee’s greatest regret turned into his saving grace.

Because, when he was initially setting up this meeting months ago, Toffee had made a choice on a whim, something he rarely did. Toffee had observed Ludo from afar for a while, and his cowardice and obsession with Princess Star Butterfly’s wand made him unlikely to be a valuable member of the army Toffee wanted to assemble to storm the Underworld.

He sent out the invitation anyway. Perhaps he would get lucky and those traits Toffee so hated would keep Ludo away.

Had Tom not burned Ludo and his men to near death only hours before, perhaps they would have.

“Move! MOVE! Get out of my way; I have something to report to this council! Gah!—don’t touch me! Move!”

Toffee watched in awe as Ludo pushed through the crowd, covered in soot and ash, burned so badly Toffee could smell charred skin and feather. The Monster’s face had a look of determination the likes of with Toffee had only minutes ago not believed Ludo was capable of.

“I will speak to them!” Ludo declared fiercely to Toffee when he reached the stage.

“My friends, Ludo of Mewni asks for your undivided attention. Please let him speak.”

Ludo, as small as he was, as uncharismatic as he was, captured the room’s interest with his anger and his injuries.

“I was on Earth,” Ludo said. “Neutral territory. Conducting personal business, when I was unjustly attacked by the Prince of the Underworld. He did this to me, and worse to my men!”

The other Monsters watched, deathly still.

“We have suffered unbearably from the wrath of the Demons! The Prince’s flames burned off our limbs, burned off our skin, stopped our hearts and blackened our lungs! I lost three men to his rage, and the whole time, he spewed slurs and threats so vile—”

Ludo broke off with a choked sob, trying desperately to keep himself from breaking down.

“All of you here,” Toffee hissed, gesturing at Ludo,” have bared witness to this travesty. No one here can say that we are free of Demons when they do this to one of our number! His burns run so deep I can see bone! And he is one of the lucky ones!”

This time, no one disagreed. Those who had argued looked ashamed. Toffee saw their hesitation, their shock, and pounced.

“Many of you have never even seen a Demon, but the first time one shows up, he degrades every Monster in his sight!” Toffee swept his tail to the side, like many of his kind did to convey anger. “If you think this is an isolated incident, look around you! Nearly half of those I invited here tonight did not come. How many of those refused invitation, and how many were not alive to receive one?”

Mutters broke out amongst the crowd now.

“We don’t need to settle for what they gave us so long ago—not while they attack us and torture and maim our brothers,” he continued, voice growing firmer, louder.

“What are you asking of us?” a Monster yelled.

“I am asking you to stand up for yourselves, your people, and your honor!” Toffee said. “Together, we outnumber Demons twenty to one! United, we can overwhelm them before they can stop fighting amongst themselves long enough to know we’ve struck!”

“You are asking us to fight to our deaths,” one Monster said gravely.

“No!” Toffee hissed acting riled up, “I am asking us to fight for our lives.”

The Monsters roared in approval, and Toffee continued,

“I propose we take back our place in the Underworld,” Toffee said. “We storm the royal castle and take back Magic for ourselves! We teach the Demons that we are not a force to be trifled with any longer! We make Magic ours!”

“Why have you started this? No one here is suffering so badly that we need to fight!” the same Monster yelled again.

“The King and Queen deprived us of our birth right! They cast us out to grovel for scraps while they live in luxury!” Toffee snapped back. “This faux contentment you parade before us is nothing compared to what we will receive upon our victory!”

“And who will lead us?” someone shouted as the crowd died down.

“My friends,” Toffee said silkily. This would be the most difficult part of his plan to pull off. “It would be both my duty and honor to lead us into battle.”

The shouting grew louder—in the overcrowded pub, the jubilant uproar was so dramatic it shook the building.

“And I shall lead us as well!” Ludo shouted, but over the din, only Toffee heard him. He had nearly forgot about Ludo, who had backed up, nursing his wounds. Toffee pushed back the sliver of distaste that ran through him. He would be thankful of Ludo’s involvement now; only when he became a nuisance would he be put in his place.

“Go out now,” Toffee said, stepping subtly in front of Ludo. “Tell your people what has transpired. We will meet again soon and begin to plan our war. Someday, when you are old and withered, this is the night you will speak of when your children’s children ask of the time you delivered your people to paradise.”

A final roar of approval shook the rafters and slowly, Monsters stood and began to file out.

Toffee stood and quickly made his way to the bar, avoiding Monsters that may have wanted to speak with him with no little difficulty. Quietly, he asked the bartender for an available back room—if he was correct, he would need it shortly.

“We’ve got four,” the bartender said. “You have a preference?”

“No,” Toffee said, “any is fine. Tell no one where I’ve gone.”

The bartender nodded, one eyebrow raised, before offering Toffee a rusted key.

“Room two,” he said, gesturing to the rooms, which were to the far right of the bar. Toffee thanked him.

Slowly, he glided through the crowd, aware of a pair of eyes following him. He sensed when someone started following him, and Toffee quickened his pace to reach the back room before he was stopped.

He could see the door the bartender mentioned, and Toffee gripped the old rusted key he had been handed to ensure the next conversation he had took place with some measure of privacy guaranteed.

Without hesitation, Toffee unlocked the door and put the key in his pocket. His hand was reaching for the door knob when—

“Toffee!" 

Toffee swerved, masking the trickle of anxiety that moved through him with a cold, dead look. He looked down at Ludo, who was smiling at him through black eyes and a crooked beak.

“I wanted to tell you that we have the Monsters of Mewni’s full support already. The Demons will pay for what they’ve done to us,” Ludo said.

“Quite right,” Toffee said, almost keeping the distaste out of his voice. It flew over Ludo’s head regardless.

“I have ideas, for when you want to discuss strategy,” Ludo continued. “We could build flying machines and attack from the sky! Or, or we could overthrow the queen and king and install a traitorous Demon loyal to our cause in their place! Or we could-we could—”

“—The time to talk strategy isn’t yet upon us,” Toffee said. “When it is, I will let you know. Until then, go home. Tend to your men, and I will alert you when the time is right.”

“I—yes, of course,” Ludo said, completely oblivious to anything but his own joy. “You’re right, my people need my attention. When is the next meeting again, so I can prepare...?”

“I will send for you,” Toffee said. “Now go; Mewni has gone too long without its leader already.”

Ludo nodded vigorously and hobbled off, Toffee watching him until he turned the corner and moved out of sight, filled with annoyance. His conversation with Ludo had thrown him off, and he took a minute to collect himself for what he was sure was behind this door.

Quickly, Toffee turned and entered the back room.

The room had been locked from the outside and Toffee had the only key to get in, and yet, sitting before him was the very late monster, the huge one who had commanded the room with a single word. He sat back comfortably in his chair, face obscured by shadows dancing over his face from the single candle that was illuminating the room.

“If you don’t keep your pets on a tighter leash, they tend to run loose,” the monster said.

“From what I see, the only one who needs their leash tightened is you,” Ludo said silkily, tail swishing once before settling behind him.

The monster growled, the sound filling the room with a primordial rage Toffee hadn’t felt in decades. Any doubts he had about the monster’s identity vanished; he knew _exactly_ who he was dealing with now.

“Mercy will be their undoing,” the monster hissed. “They are weak, and it is time that our people learn of the weak hearts of their rulers.”

“And yet,” Toffee said slyly, “should they learn of your presence here, you would almost certainly be destroyed.”

The atmosphere lightened, and the monster chuckled.

“We’d die together then. I, after trial and ceremony, and you, where you stand.”

Toffee frowned. It was clear what this monster wanted from him. Almost pathetically so. The only question left…

“Why do you think we would ally with the likes of you?”

The monster leaned forward, one clawed hand dragging three deep cuts into the table underneath.

“You need a way to establish order once you take control,” the monster said. “I am the only one who could maintain that control.”

Toffee looked at him, clearly unimpressed.

“Perhaps you were, but as of now, you have no resources, no legitimacy…no heir.”

The monster bristled.

“I have an heir,” he growled. “And I have a solution for the legitimacy problem that I have already begun to implement. Everything else will fall into place after that.”

Toffee nodded, deeply considering the monster in front of him. It was best that he proceeded with extreme caution until a Deal could be struck and this monster’s promises could be guaranteed. Toffee stepped forward and lowered his neutral mask just slightly, a ferocious, fanged smile tearing itself onto his face.

“Then by all means,” he said, voice laced with a dark laugh, “let’s begin.”

* * *

_(Pythia sighs deeply; she’s Seen something, but she doesn’t quite know how to go about dealing with it. She turns away from her task and reaches for her coffee, now cold. After a moment of hesitation, she aborts the motion and stands, heading toward her liquor cabinet instead. She’ll need a little liquid courage for what comes next.)_

Baldino had finally found a lead that paid off. Marco Diaz lived in Echo Creek, California. He was attending the local high school, and if they timed it right, Sam Baldino would be too this year, to an extent.

* * *

Four fat magpies sat on the grass to the left of the sidewalk of the diner Marco had told Tom to be at. Tom had been staring at the diner for the past ten minutes, a thousand different emotions running through him. He felt himself blink as one of the birds hobbled a bit closer to him. Their beaks were shiny and their intelligent eyes rested on Tom’s unmoving form every once and a while. They reminded Tom of home.

The diner itself was neither old nor new; neither rundown nor opulent. It was just a diner, average in every sense of the word. There was no detail about it that made it even a little interesting, from its generic sign to its poor lighting to the few patches of unkempt flowers that were planted near the doors months ago. And yet, Tom couldn’t help but stare.

Every article of clothing he had on was heavy. He felt weighed down by everything, from his loose tie to his shoes to the ring his uncle had given him. He was already fifteen minutes late. Marco would be getting impatient soon.

Steeling himself, Tom took a single step forward. The magpies scattered. He took another step. And then another.

What felt like a century of walking took Tom to the door. With a chime, it swung open, and Tom’s eyes immediately found Marco. He was sitting with his back away from the door, although Tom saw him tense the second he heard the bell ring.

 _‘The bell tolls for thee, Marco,’_ Tom thought gravely. _‘Unless I can stop it.’_

 _‘Dramatic little shit, aren’t you?’_ his mind shot right back at him.

Tom ignored the fear trembling in his gut and moved forward, feet stepping only on the white parts of the checked floor. He passed a young family and two more empty booths before he reached Marco. If Marco was surprised that he had finally showed up after all, he didn’t show it as Tom slid into the seat across from him.

Silence.

“So.”

Tom’s eyes, which had been glued to the table, shot up. One of Marco’s eyebrows shot up with them.

“I don’t know what’s with this weird mood change I’ve been getting from you, but I guess it’s too late to keep ignoring it. Or you,” Marco said.

“That would be nice,” Tom managed to say, surprised that Marco had been observing him this week.

Marco held up a hand, and Tom shrunk back a little. Marco lowered it, as if his point was proven.

“This is what I’m talking about,” he said. “The last time I saw you, you were about three seconds away from roasting me alive. Now every time I look at you, you look like you’re about to cry. What is up with you?”

Tom thought back to the last few years.

“It’s complicated?” he tried.

“Try again,” Marco said, sitting back and folding his arms.

Tom’s heart fluttered for a couple of reasons. He tried to focus on Marco’s words instead of every other part of him.

“I’m not ‘up to something’ if that’s what you’re asking,” Tom said.

“You’re dodging the question, Tom, and it’s getting old,” he said. “If you aren’t gonna say anything, I will.”

Marco sat forward, hands clasped together, eyes steel as he drew his attention solely on Tom.

“Ferguson said that you think something’s coming that we can’t handle,” Marco said. “We’ve handled a lot, but you’ve been spying a lot, so I don’t know if we’re really on the same page about our abilities.”

“You broke your leg fighting monsters,” Tom blurted out before he could stop himself. “You were lucky that didn’t get you killed.”

Marco jolted slightly and unclasped his hands slowly. Tom took satisfaction in surprising him, even if it was short lived by Marco’s reply:

“Unless you tell me why you care so much about our health, you can consider this conversation over,” Marco said, getting up to leave. Tom’s hand shot out and grasped his wrist.

“Please don’t leave,” Tom said quickly, trying to hide a wince. “I swear I’m not trying to hurt you or Star or your friends or anyone else, but I can’t tell you why I’m here without jeopardizing it.”

Marco didn’t look very impressed.

Tom’s nerves, which were already wracked with tension, spooled in on themselves just a little bit more. He tried to loosen the grip he had on Marco’s wrist, but he couldn’t for the life of him relax.

“I get it that you don’t trust me now; I don’t deserve it,” Tom continued a bit desperately. “But—I want to start over. I’m sorry for watching you, I’m sorry for the Blood Moon and I’m sorry for scaring you at school. I want to make things right between us.”

Marco stared at Tom for a long moment, eyes intense and unblinking.

There was a moment there, the two of them at the precipice, where Tom believed that Marco would shake him off and let him fall.

Marco sat back down, and Tom could have wept in relief.

“No more spying,” Marco said. “No more sneaking around and watching us. If you won’t even tell me what you’re here for, you better believe we’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

Tom nodded mutely, thankful that Marco was as kind a person as he was—while always pragmatic, always vigilant, under layers of sarcasm and worry, Marco was as forgiving as they came. He hadn’t uttered it, but Tom knew on some level, Marco wanted to start over too.

“I’ll be as open with you as I can,” Tom promised earnestly.

Marco eyed him for a moment. Quick as a whip, Marco shook off Tom’s grip on his wrist and grabbed his hand as Tom was letting it fall to the table.

“Shake on it,” Marco said seriously, gripping Tom’s hand firmly. “If you mean it, swear it.”

Tom’s heart fluttered as he gripped Marco’s hand.

“Like a Deal?” Tom asked weakly.

“Yeah…?” Marco said, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

Tom silently fought with himself for a moment.

“You know how important deals are to Demons?” he finally said.

Marco shrugged. “About as important to anyone else, I guess. Now do we have one?”

“They’re unbreakable,” Tom said quickly. “We seal them. There’s no breaking a promise with a Demon.”

“What does that entail?” Marco asked sharply, now paying pointed attention to Tom’s words.

“We exchange something the other one wants. Magic makes it so,” Tom said. “That’s the gist of it, anyway.”

Marco considered his words while Tom watched on, worried.

“Even better, then,” he decided. “You don’t lie to me, you don’t trick me. In exchange—”

Marco faltered, and Tom, after a beat, said,

“You’ll…show me to my classes for the year?” Tom supplied hesitantly.

“Yeah,” Marco said slowly. “Yeah… I can do that. You enrolled in all of mine anyway, you big creep.”

But now, the insult was a little softer, a little more playful.

“So then…we have a deal?” Tom asked, a soft smile poking through.

“Yeah, we have a deal,” Marco said firmly.

They shook on it, and Tom felt the magic twining around them before it settled between them. He let go of Marco’s hand, feeling enormously pleased with how the conversation had gone.

Which quickly turned into confusion when Marco leaned over the table.

“You better not try to hurt the people I care about,” he nearly growled before gently grabbing Tom’s collar and pulling him into a kiss.

Tom’s mind short circuited for a few seconds after that, and all he could do was marvel at the soft lips pressing insistently on his own. Tom _melted_ into the kiss _._

Marco pulled away and leaned up, staring down at him expectantly.

“Well, are we good?”

“Oh, it was _good_ ,” Tom said, closing his eyes as feeling washed over him.

_‘He kissed me, I can’t believe he kissed me! He kissed me, he kissed me, he kissed me!’_

Neither of them spoke for a minute.

“Not that I mind,” Tom said mildly, every muscle in his body loose, every part of him thrumming happily, “but what was that for?”

When he opened his eyes, Tom saw that Marco was shooting him a look of pure confusion.

“You said we had to seal the deal.”

Tom nearly giggled. “With a handshake, yeah.”

Marco’s face went from confused, to understanding, to downright embarrassed. The blush the crossed over his face was the cutest thing Tom had ever seen.

“I—oh my god, I’m sorry—”

“Happens all the time,” Tom said easily, leaning back. “I’ll see you at school on Monday?”

Marco nodded and nearly tripped over someone on his speed walk out the door.

Tom sat in that diner for a long time after, waiting for the hopeless fluttering in his heart to die down.

He never noticed a patient pair of eyes from a booth across the room never stray far from where he was seated.

* * *

On Sunday, Tom felt lazy. His parents usually summoned him every once in a while to check in on him if he left the Underworld, and he usually just sent a prerecorded message that let them know he was fine.

It’s what he did now before lazily flopping over on his stomach in the grass he was resting in, soaking in the warm sun, feeling more content then he had in ~~years~~ weeks.

“He kissed me!” Tom said to no one, dissolving into laughter, insides swimming pleasantly. “Marco kissed me.”

He stretched leisurely and closed his eyes. Nothing could bring him down from the high he was currently on.

A firm boot to the head certainly knocked that high down a peg or two, though.

Tom went flying back as someone’s foot connected with his temple. He hit a tree with a low thud. The kick broke his neck, his back, and the tree. His head immediately started throbbing when his neck realigned itself; his nerves burned with a pain so acute he could only push himself to his knees before it became too much.

Tom couldn’t twist his head up to see who had attacked him yet, but when two very familiar purple boots appeared in his line of vision, followed by the hem of a blue dress, he knew exactly who had kicked him.

“That’s for spying on us!” Star Butterfly yelled, pulling back and kicking him again.

Again, Tom flew, this time passed the broken tree and well into a dirt field.

“That’s for the Blood Moon Ball!”

Her boot hit him square in the jaw and Tom soared backwards, limbs flying until a chain link fence at the boarder of an abandoned plant stopped him, rattling horribly against the force.

“That’s _also_ for spying on us! What is your _problem_?!” Star yelled.

Tom, momentarily stunned, glanced up and raised a hand to shade his eyes from the sun.

“I know that kick anywhere,” Tom said, dazed, as a shadow grew over him. A rough hand grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him up.

“Why are you here, Tom?” Star growled, eyes burning at the sight of him.

“You broke my back in three places, Star,” he said, “let me sit down.”

She dropped him without any forewarning, and Tom fell to the ground with a thud. His back jolted miserably (as did every other part of his body).

“Start talking,” she seethed, glaring.

His back was still kneading itself together. It was the strangest feeling, that intermediate between being invincible and being broken, and Tom wasn’t sure if he loved or hated it about himself.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he wheezed. Some ribs were still poking into his lungs.

“I’ve believed that before,” she said, crossing her arms, “keep talking, or I’ll blast you back to the Underworld.”

Tom was at a loss for words. Why hadn’t he planned for seeing Star again? He _knew_ she was coming back, but at the time he had been so focused on Marco that it had slipped his mind…

 _‘Say something you idiot, she’s waiting,’_ he thought.

“I’m not in love with you anymore,” Tom blurted out.

Star was, to put it mildly, confused. “Uh…what?” she said.

If Tom wasn’t in so much pain, he’d be blushing. Instead, he stretched—his back cracked loudly as his spine moved back into place—and looked up at Star.

She was frowning, arms crossed over her chest.

“Never said it out loud before,” Tom realized.

Star’s frown deepened.

“If that’s true, then why were you _spying_ on me for a year through Marco?” 

Tom shrugged. “It was because I was in love with you.”

Star groaned. “You’re not making any sense! So you’re not in love with me—and you showed up here _because—?_ ”

Tom thought back to a year ago, when he was convinced Star Butterfly had hung the moon and the stars themselves. She was as beautiful as ever, but Tom didn’t feel the same overwhelming emotions he used to feel whenever they spoke. It was like the sharp edges of his love had smoothed over, like the stalagmites that had been stabbing him in his sides whenever he thought about her had been worn into nothing more than a comfortable appreciation for her role in his life.

“I’ve got something I need to fix between you, Marco, and me,” he said. “If I tell you what it is, you’re going to try to stop me. But I’m trying to help… trying to fix what happened at the Blood Moon Ball.”

Star huffed.

“You’re acting weird,” she accused, crossing her arms and looking away. “I’m not sorry for kicking your butt though.”

Tom shrugged and grabbed his head, twisting it until his neck cracked loudly. Star winced at the sound.

“I hate it when you do that,” she said. “It sounds so gross. it’s like stepping on the crunchiest leaf you ever saw and then finding out that there was a frog underneath it and you squashed your new frog buddy before he could so much as ribbit.”

“Maybe don’t break my neck in the future,” Tom said mildly, turning his head and cracking it again.

Star laughed, and Tom doubted she would take him up on that. Star was always stepping on the crunchiest leaves because above all else she craved satisfaction, and sometimes the frog under the leaf was collateral that wasn’t big enough to drown out the feeling of how right and good her actions felt. He had learned that about her a long time ago, and it was still something he loved about her: sometimes…Star was more dangerous than Tom.

When she calmed down Star said, “So you really don’t want to tell me why you’re here? It’ll save us all some time.”

Tom shook his head. “Like I said, you’d try to stop me. You’d probably succeed, too.”

Star’s eyes lost their mirth, and she turned and faced Tom fully.

“You were always on me that I never learned anything about your culture when we were together. Which, don’t blame me, because you guys like eating actual lips and bathing in blood and no one else has _ever_ liked that, so—”

“Do you have a point, Star?” Tom asked, suddenly feeling prickly, the same way he always felt when she talked about the Underworld.

“So touchy. Whatever. When I figured out you were the one watching us, I did some studying,” she said, looking a little smug.

“Oh?” Tom said, obviously faking how impressed he was. “And what did Glossaryck say?”

Star deflated a little. Tom couldn’t hide his glee at catching her being lazy. She was so predictable in some ways.

“I learned a lot about Deals and how they work,” she said. “And I want to make one with you. It’s why I didn’t just punch your dumb face until it was so unrecognizable you could actually show it around here after I told you not to and get away with it. Until I punched it back into shape after I guess…Or maybe punched it into another face? Does that make me…a sculptor? A… _scalp_ tor?”

“Is…is there a point to this?” Tom asked.

Star waved him off. “Anyway, I know that if we make a Deal, you can’t break it, right?”

Tom shrugged. “At its core, I can’t break it. Don’t underestimate the power of a technicality, though.”

Star waved the thought away. “Then make a Deal with me that you won’t do anything bad while you’re here.”

Tom was floored.

“That’s what you want?” he asked. Did…did she not know how arbitrary something like the concept of bad was? Especially to a demon? It was almost insulting!

“In exchange, I won’t have to beat you up if you’re messing around with someone’s life while you’re here. Everybody wins!”

It had been a while since Tom had made a Deal in which he was bound by Magic. But if it would keep Star from actively running him out of town, he’d consider it. The only problem he really had with it was—

 _‘Ugh, a moral dilemma,’_ Tom thought, inwardly rolling his eyes.

Because taking advantage of this particular Deal would be easier than starting a fire for him. It’d be easier than drawing breath. She hadn’t defined bad, she hadn’t put limits to what he could do if he justified the end result was good, she hadn’t even said that he couldn’t just portal them out of town and kill them! Was she purposefully being like this, to test him?

“God, you’re as frustrating as ever,” Tom muttered. “You know that, you _have_ to know that. There’s no other explanation why you’d be like this. I _just_ told you that the way you word it matters.”

Star didn’t look particularly worried.

“It’ll be _fiiiiiiiiiiine_ ,” she said. “Marco said so.”

Tom’s head jerked up.

“Marco agreed to this?” he asked.

Star gave him a considering look. Tom wasn’t sure he liked having this much of her attention on him.

“Mostly,” she said. “Marco thinks you actually might not be here to cause problems. If you aren’t, then you won’t _try_ to find a way around our Deal.”

Tom looked at her for a moment.

“So he knows that there’s a way to guarantee that I don’t do anything, but doesn’t know you ran over here as soon as he was distracted to make it happen.”

Star had the grace to look at least a little guilty.

“In theory, if you were good, your definition of bad would line up with ours,” she said.

Tom didn’t look impressed. “Did Marco tell you that, too?”

“No,” she said hotly. “Maybe I actually think you’ve changed! Maybe it’s me actually giving you a chance and you doing everything in your power to screw it up! Ever think about it like that, you jerk?”

She turned and started to stomp away.

Tom watched her blankly for a moment.

…

What was he feeling right now? What did it mean when your heart stopped and you couldn’t breathe, but it was a good thing?

…

“W-wait! Star!” he yelled, rushing after her.

He intercepted her at the broken tree, and she tapped her foot impatiently.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll make the Deal.”

Star regarded the hand he shot out to shake coolly.

“Believe it or not, Tom, I know you a little bit better than you think,” she said, eying him. “We dated for a long time. I know what you’re like. Don’t act like I’m stupid because I already know what you’re capable of.”

They stood there in silence, wind blowing around them, Tom with his hand out, Star staring at it.

“You aren’t stupid, Star,” Tom said.

Silence again.

“It doesn’t mean I trust you,” she said. “I just know that there are things that you don’t do. You take this stuff seriously, so this time, I will too.”

She took his hand; Magic soared between them, binding their promises together. Tom looked at her in wonder. Her eyes were fiery, her hair whipped back and forth around her body. She looked like Magic itself as her beauty marks lit up and her eyes glowed like his did. It wasn’t hard to remember why he had loved her so much.

“You’ve grown up, Star Butterfly,” Tom said as the Deal cemented around them.

Her eyes widened and she let out a hollow, startled laugh, pulling away from Tom.

“I guess I have, Tom." 

There wasn’t anything else to say after that. The two parted, and it took Tom a long time to understand why the light had left her eyes when she left.

* * *

_(Pythia has made a decision—for what’s to come, someone will have to be ready for it. The question becomes how to prepare a grain of rice for a monsoon.)_

* * *

School the next week passed by in a blur. 

They had a new physics teacher as Mestre had taken the rest of the year off. According to the sub, he sighted a stressful workplace environment and a renewed interest to practice real estate, but at that point, Tom had stopped listening to focus on other, more important matters. When he couldn’t think of any he wanted to think about, he stared out the window, bored out of his mind.

Marco walked with him to class and they had developed a small rapport. It was awkward at times, and there were silences that stretched too long, and Tom got nervous every time it felt like he was laughing or talking for too long, but it was something Tom held close. It was progress.

During class one morning, Tom got a call and stepped out to take it.

He was greeted to Dantalion’s smiling face, and he smiled back.

“Hi Uncle Dan!” Tom said brightly.

“Hello, Tom,” Dantalion replied. “You look well. I’m going hunting soon and thought you might like to join me.”

Tom’s smile widened—

_‘School, Marco, Star? What about your plan?’_

—and fell.

“I’m actually on Earth right now, Uncle Dan. I’ve got some business that I’m tying up and I don’t know how long it will take to finish.”

Dantalion, to his credit, to the rejection with grace.

“It’s perfectly fine, Tom,” he said, almost hiding his disappointment, “just thought I’d extend the offer.”

“Thanks, Uncle Dan,” Tom said sincerely. “How are things with my mom and dad going?”

Dantalion didn’t hide his wince.

“They’re going about as well as can be expected. The Queen especially isn’t very eager to put up with my presence, and my brother…is much colder than I expected.”

Tom felt his heart jump, filled with sympathy and guilt that he had made Dantalion’s reparations sound easier than they truly would be.

“Uncle Dan, I—”

Dantalion waved him off.

“It isn’t your fault, Tom,” he said sincerely. “My brother and his wife don’t forgive easily, and I know how much work is in store to set things right. I am more than willing to make amends. In time, I’m sure they will be too.”

Tom nodded eagerly.

“You may have just caught them at a bad time,” he offered. “After cabinet meetings, they’re usually pretty tired. Try going to them after a meal…I’ve found them to be a lot calmer after they’ve eaten. You can ambush them then.”

Dantalion nodded thoughtfully.

“I’ll follow your advice however I can, Tom,” he said. “Your thoughts on this matter are very valuable to me. Thank you for your help.”

Tom puffed up happily, loving the appreciation.

“Do you still have the ring I gave you?” Dantalion asked warmly.

Tom held up his hand to display the fat ruby ring on his finger.

“You’re too good to your uncle,” Dantalion said with a laugh. “I’ve known Demons who would have thrown it in my face for far less than what I’ve done to you. Thank you for trusting me, Tom. I swear, I’ll make things right again.”

Tom nodded. “Good luck, Uncle Dan. I hope everything goes well.”

Dantalion laughed. “We’ll see, Tom. But I hope so. Goodbye, nephew!”

“Bye, Uncle Dan!” Tom chirped, ending the call.

Feeling a lot happier, Tom cut a portal and reentered the classroom he had left from twenty minutes ago.

The new teacher didn’t startle per say, but they did prickle up when Tom took his seat.

“You can’t leave again during my class without asking, Tom,” they said. “It’s a matter of safety.”

Tom snorted—as if anything around here (besides Star, temporarily) would endanger him—but nodded. He wasn’t here to cause problems.

“It’s about respect, son,” the teacher continued. “If you leave, especially like that, it takes away from your peer’s education. No distractions are allowed in the classroom—even from you, Mr. Diaz. Phone please.”

Tom watched as Marco, looking very reprimanded, dropped his phone into the box the sub was holding out.

“Now then, if there are no further interruptions…?”

No one spoke.

“Good. Now, back to circular motion. Can anyone tell me which vector on the board represents which forces? Diaz, let’s try for redemption—you don’t cen _trip_ _it all_ up and I don’t write you up.”

Tom sighed softly at the sub’s dumb joke and started doodling on his notebook.

Poking out from underneath his textbook was a piece of red parchment.

Damn it—he was gone for twenty minutes! How did Pythia—

“Everything okay, Tom?” the sub asked, eying him curiously.

“Yeah,” Tom replied distractedly.

“Okay,” the sub said, “then could you please tell me the answer to—”

“—gravity and acceleration.”

“—the prob—yes, that is correct.” The sub turned their attention back to the class, “it is due to gravity that when we spin an object attached to a rope…”

Tom drowned them out immediately, focused entirely on the parchment. It felt the same way her first prophecy had. It made him feel cold.

He forced himself to grip the parchment and unfolded it:

_We dance round in a ring and suppose,  
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows._

3 5 8

Tom groaned quietly.

Well, that could mean a thousand things. And what did those numbers _mean_?

Tom looked around the room so he didn’t have to stare at it. Across the room, Marco was staring, but when they made eye contact, Marco quickly turned away.

Tom felt himself blushing and returned his attention to her words.

In the front of the classroom, the sub droned on about running in circles.

“It’s like how tension keeps this mass from breaking away, except in this instance, if you were to break away from your own centripetal force in favor of centrifugal force, you’d crash and burn on the track.”

Hopefully Dantalion was having better luck solving his problems than Tom was having tackling his.

 _‘It’s like she wants me to know something’s wrong, but doesn’t want to spoil the surprise_ , _’_ Tom thought to himself, quietly crumbling up the paper and shoving it into his pocket. He’d deal with it later.

God, she was irritating, especially when she was trying to help.

Tom put her out of his mind the best he could, but for the rest of the day, he could feel the red parchment weighing him down every time he took a step.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that one was a doozy to write, but I really liked writing Star! 
> 
> Just in case anyone was wondering, I'm not trying to liken the Monsters to any other real group of people, and I'm going to try to differentiate them from any real groups of people as much as possible. Monsters are in their predicament because they were causing actual problems, and Demons are raging pieces of shit in general who don't respond well to pretty much anything. Demons are still worse in this situation though, not trying to sugarcoat it.
> 
> Any questions, feel free to PM me or ask and I'll try to answer ASAP. Thanks for reading!


	6. Heavy is the Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Code hint at the end. TW: Death mention, gore mention Thank you so much for reading and reviewing!!!

 

Tom fumbled with the small bag in his hand impatiently, waiting for Marco to come. Sitting on his own desk was another small bag.

“Whatcha got there, Tom?”

Tom jumped; involuntarily, his head turned a full 180 degrees.

Janna was smirking unabashedly at him, lounging on the desk behind him.

“Cool,” she said as Tom moved his body so his head wasn’t tilted so unnaturally. Her Cheshire grin didn’t budge.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tom said, looking towards the door again. It was almost seven; Marco was going to be late.

“You waiting for your _boyfriend_ , Tom?” Janna teased, the smirk widening.

“ _Heisn’tmyboyfriend_ ,” Tom said quickly, glaring at Janna a bit.

For whatever reason, the human wasn’t intimidated by him at all.

“Whatever you say, Tom,” she said, leaning back. “I see how you look at him. It isn’t hard to see that you are in L-O- _V_ —”

Janna’s beanie caught fire. She laughed and tossed it at him. It burned up before it touched his face.

“You owe me a new one!” she chirped, giggling as she stood.

“Like hell I do,” Tom growled, trying to calm down.

“I’ll tell Marco if you don’t!” she said, twirling around him.

“You wouldn’t dare!” Tom said, turning again to face her—

“Tell me what?” Marco stood there, unpacking his bag, faintly out of breath.

“…that he brought you a muffin today!” Janna laughed as she winked at Tom, who was very close to either turning on Janna or dying of embarrassment.

Marco looked back and forth between Janna and Tom as she turned to leave. He eyed the bag on the desk and then turned back to Tom.

“Really?” he asked, grabbing the bag before Tom could squeak out an answer. He dumped a blueberry muffin out and let it roll onto his hand. Marco’s eyes lit up. “Thanks, man! I skipped breakfast today. This is great.”

Marco took a big bite out of it and Tom smiled weakly.

“No big deal,” he said in what he hoped sounded like it wasn’t a big deal. “They gave me an extra one.”

“Oooh, Tom, is this the receipt?” Janna asked, pulling a piece of paper out from his desk from under his arm. “Why does it say—”

The receipt went up in a puff of smoke in her hands.

“Say what, Janna?” Tom asked, faux calm.

Janna opened her mouth—

“’anna, an’t ‘ou ‘uppossed tuh be in class?” Marco asked through his muffin, swallowing hard.

“Oh shit, yeah,” Janna said, turning to leave. “See you later Tom! Marco, don’t eat that thing too fast!”

Janna strolled out of the room just as the late bell rung. Marco popped the last of the muffin in his mouth and chewed thoroughly.

“Man, that hit the spot,” he said, sighing happily. “Thanks again.”

“Glad you liked it, Marco,” Tom said, smiling through the anger he was feeling for Janna.

Marco looked at him for a second, as if contemplating something. 

“Yeah, Janna’s pretty weird,” he said finally. “And not very good at respecting personal boundaries. And I think she got banned from the pet store a month or two back?”

“Why?” Tom asked, anger draining as Marco let out a genuine laugh. 

“Oh my GOD, it was amazing, actually. She dressed up like an employee and got the keys from the manager and with everyone watching, she let loose all the birds and snakes and stuff. They couldn’t catch her, and the whole time she kept them distracted while me and Star snuck in and grabbed this cat that had eaten an infina-stone, but the whole time she was screaming about—about reptile overlords and Weird Al and, and—I don’t know, it was great.” 

Tom smiled as Marco laughed and soon he was laughing with Marco.

“Ahh…she’s still super weird though,” Marco said with a shrug. “It’s just how she is.”

Tom thought about Marco’s friends for a second. It had been Alfonso who had, to Tom’s surprise (and everyone else’s) invited him to sit with them at lunch. Ferguson had been the one to tell him that people usually brought a lunch and had even tried some of his sugar lips when he’d brought them. Jackie Thomas (it had been surprising how quickly his animosity towards her drained was he got to know her) had been the first one of them to laugh at the first joke he told.

_‘Marco is friends with good people,’_ Tom decided, ‘ _no matter how annoying they are.’_

“She grows on you then?” Tom asked seriously. Marco nodded vigorously.

“Yeah, she really does,” he said. “You gonna eat that other muffin?”

He was _going_ to, but Marco was eying it hungrily and Tom could wait a few hours to eat if it meant Marco not going without. Tom shook his head and tossed the muffin over. Marco quickly let it plop into his hand and tore it in half, handing one part back to Tom.

“You’re a bad liar, you know,” Marco said, grinning through another bite of muffin.

Tom smiled softly and reached out, their hands brushing together as he grabbed the muffin. He was feeling warm, and maybe more importantly, he was feeling big.

“I can’t be that bad,” he said.

Marco laughed. “You’re worse than Star, and Star is the _worst_ liar I’ve ever met!”

“Oh, and you’re better?” Tom asked playfully.

“I’m the _best_ liar you’ll ever meet,” Marco boasted through the muffin. “When I need to be, I guess. It’s not like I’m doing it all the time or anything like that.”

“Wouldn’t I not know, if that were the case? What if you never tell the truth? Marco Diaz, where does the lie end and the truth _begin_?”

“Exactly,” Marco said, taking another bite in triumph. “You’ll never see it coming.”

Tom smiled and took a bite out of his half of the muffin.

* * *

Star had been keeping an eye on him ever since she got back. 

He would be proud of her suspicion if she wasn’t so _bad_ at it.

“I know you’re there, Star,” Tom called from under the tree he was sitting at. Star was tangled in the branches above him, not making a sound, but moving around so much it shook the tree at its base. It was like she was tapping him on the shoulder, it was so obvious.

“Who’s Star?” she said, pitching her voice up. “I’m just a lonely squirrel, looking for nuts to store for the winter…” she shoved an acorn in her mouth.

Tom rolled his eyes but let her be; she’d give up soon enough and just confront him like she always did. Star didn’t do subtle. It was in her nature to be straight forward. You just couldn’t change some things about some people. Tom would always have his anger, and Star would always have her cheer.

He didn’t move when her grip eventually failed and she fell in front of him. Star was sturdier than she looked; all Mewmans could take quite a few hits before they really started feeling them, and Star was the most Mewman of them all. Just like he thought, she bounced right up and sat next to him like nothing had happened.

“You’re acting weird,” Tom said. “Which would normally be normal, but it’s weird by your standards. Did your mom give you the talk?”

Star’s face scrunched up. “Ew, Tom, that’s gross! My mom wouldn’t—”

“—about taking the throne, Star,” Tom interrupted.

They sat in silence.

“It’s the only reason you’d be gone for so long,” Tom said. “Marco told everyone that you said it was the quarter century Goodness Celebration, but I know that only lasts three days, and you always try to sneak out of it.”

Star huffed nervously and said with a fake smile, “Why would I try to sneak out of a ceremony in my own honor, Tom? In fact, I stayed twice as long to make up for my previous—uh, absences. We partied for a whole week—”

“Star, you just turned of age. It takes about a week for the monarchy trials to be completed, and I know you passed with flying colors.”

Star let out a shaky laugh. “Tom, even if I _was_ doing the trials that whole week, which I wasn’t, do you honestly think that I’d pass without knowing anything about how to be a good queen or—”

Fire erupted from Tom’s hand. When it dissipated, he was holding a regal looking card. Scrawled in graceful penmanship were the words ‘Mewni Princess Star Butterfly to become queen-ascendant of her throne’.

“I received this a few days after you came back,” Tom said. Star visibly deflated. 

“I forgot they sent those dumb things,” she muttered, crossing her arms and blowing a tuft of hair away from her face. 

“You got mine, didn’t you?” Tom asked. He knew she did. Even if his had happened long before she was born, his family made it a point to send them out every hundred years or so for posterity’s sake. It was important for other kingdoms to know who was next in line, and the monarchy trials that so many of the royal families had really cemented the decision as to who would take the throne next and made unexpected death much more bearable for the kingdom.

“Yeah…” she said glumly.

Tom didn’t push her anymore about it. When Star wanted to talk, she would talk. Tom already had a sneaking suspicion that she didn’t like the implications of the trials: that someday her mother would die, and that someday she would have to be responsible for an entire kingdom. He’d come to terms with it long ago. He hoped that she would, too.

(It was unfair, he knew, to think like this. His mother was immortal. He would never have to experience her death and he would never have to take the throne. Star knew that, and probably resented him a bit for that fact. He didn’t mind; he could live a thousand lives—and would—with Star’s resentment if it meant his parents were always there, even if he didn’t spend too much time with them. It was nice, knowing that his parents were there for him if he needed them. Maybe he’d answer their call the next time they contacted him.)

“I could make her immortal, you know,” Tom said. It wasn’t the first time he offered.

Star’s hand clenched.

“She wouldn’t let it happen,” Star said. It wasn’t the first time she’d declined.

“I could make you immortal,” Tom said.

Star shook her head.

“Then I’d be a queen forever,” she said.

Tom shrugged. “You’d probably be a pretty good queen.”

Star blew up. “But it’s boring!” she seethed. “It’s boring and hard and sad, and everyone’s always looking at you and waiting for you to mess up—”

Star stood and paced vigorously.

“—and then I’ll have to get married and have a kid, which, ew! I don’t want to get married to some guy I’ve never met and I’ll never love and have a dumb kid that’ll just grow up living the exact awful life I had to put up with—”

Tom jolted—something important, something her never thought about, clicked into place.

“Star,” he interrupted, and she stared impatiently. “What if…it was some _girl_ that you’d never even met?”

Star looked at him like he just slapped her in the face.

“I—I—”

“You’re… _magic_ , Star,” Tom said. “Part of you is magic; I can feel it. If anyone could get around getting married just to continue the line, you would. You’re smart and powerful and you don’t let anyone tell you what to do; Don’t let _that_ be the reason you deny Mewni the queen it deserves.”

With tears budding in the corners of her eyes, Star looked a little bewildered.

“How did you find out?”

Tom shrugged little helplessly. “I’ve known you a long time. I guess it took me a little longer to finally figure you out.”

Star looked shocked until—she smiled, shaking her head slowly.

“You really didn’t come here to try to get me to like you again, did you?” she asked.

“…at first, I did,” Tom admitted, looking away from her in guilt.

He could almost hear her frown.

“What changed?” she asked.

Tom shrugged.

“Oh, come on, what changed Tom?” Star asked a little more playfully.

“I had a change of heart?” he tried.

Star knew this about Demons: they didn’t just ‘have a change of heart’; they had a change in _fixation_. She was on him in an instant.

“Oh my god, who is she? Tom—Tom, you have to tell me, I need to know! Tom, come on, are we rivals? Tooooom, come on, tell me if I have competition!”

Tom was overwhelmed at her intensity for a second.

“You don’t have competition, Star,” he said weakly.

“Oh come on, if it’s a girl, then I’ve got competition!” Star said confidently. “Please, Tom! You can tell me!”

Tom blushed furiously and turned away.

“You don’t have competition,” he repeated in a choked whisper.

“Come on,” she said with a bright smile, “Marco wasn’t hanging around too many other girls last year, and if it wasn’t _me_ you were spying on all year, then…then…”

_‘Oh god, she’s gonna yell it—’_

Star’s jaw went slack as she stared at him with round, delighted eyes.

“Then it was some _guy_ that you’d never even met! And that means that YOU LIKE MAR—”

He slapped a hand over her mouth and begged her not to yell.

“I’m not letting go until you promise you won’t tell him!”

Star nodded, smiling so hard that Tom could feel it on the palm of his hand. Before he could do anything else, she was running around the tree, screaming happily.

Tom couldn’t help but feel relieved, despite the massive amount of embarrassment that he was feeling for her figuring it out so soon. Still, he looked around the field, relieved only to see the sub, Baldino, walking a fair distance away from them, texting someone on their phone. No one would be telling Tom’s secret unless Star let it slip.

Meanwhile, Star was still screaming, hands thrown up over her head and running around wildly. She actually _ran_ into Baldino, who dropped their phone with a curse loud enough for Tom to hear. The next curse came when the phone was clearly destroyed from its short drop to the ground.

Star stopped for a moment and pulled out her wand, still screaming. She cast a quick spell and the phone’s broken pieces flew back together and molded themselves back to the phone perfectly. She waved and Baldino weakly waved back, clearly astounded. Despite the situation, Tom laughed.

He’d figure out how to make sure Star didn’t tell her roommate about his crush later; for now, he’d enjoy the warm sun, the clean air, and the fact that Star Butterfly didn’t hate his guts anymore.

* * *

Tom was called up to Baldino’s desk right after the rest of the class was dismissed for lunch. Tom went up begrudgingly; he knew the Baldino wasn’t crazy about him, and he really didn’t care for how the teacher was always hyper focused on him, waiting for him to do something even minutely disruptive so that they could call him out for it. 

Honestly, Tom was confused as to why he was in trouble. He really hadn’t done anything during that period. Baldino didn’t assuage his confusion by pulling out their cellphone.

“Can you explain why my phone isn’t broken into a hundred pieces?”

Tom looked at the black screen, feeling mildly annoyed. This was why he was missing lunch with Marco and the others?

The screen flashed briefly; the name “Perezosa” lit up with the beginning of the message: avoid further contact until...

Baldino saw the message and pulled the phone out of Tom’s sight.

“Star just fixed it,” Tom said. “She’s good at that kind of stuff.”

“Son, I don’t think you understand,” Baldino said. “It was destroyed. It wouldn’t turn on. Now the battery won’t drain and the memory has tripled. And…”

Baldino whipped the phone passed Tom’s head; it hit the wall with a loud smack. Tom didn’t turn. Baldino looked at him expectantly.

Tom gave him a shit eating grin and swiveled his head around unnaturally, more for Baldino’s reaction than to look at the unbroken phone on the other side of the classroom.

“So you’re complaining because she made it better?” Tom asked. “I can’t turn it back into garbage, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It’s not the end, it’s the means,” Baldino hissed. “She shot light out of that wand and broke ten different laws of physics. Don’t you think it’s worth knowing why?”

“It’s magic,” Tom said dismissively. “No big deal. Humans used to use it all the time.”

“Hm,” Baldino said, “and what does that make you?”

“Demon,” Tom grunted, unconcerned. He had nothing to hide from the teacher.

Baldino sat back, contemplative.

“A Demon, huh? Ya know, I heard something about a Demon in New York a month or two back,” Baldino started. “Something about a monster and a pair of scissors. You know anything about that?”

Tom thought back to his travels on Earth these past few months.

“Not really seen and Monsters until fairly recently…Oh, do you mean the Orc?”

“Yeah, the Orc in New Yorc,” Baldino said.

Tom shrugged. “Sure. There was an Orc. Anything else?”

“You were the one that got rid of it?”

Tom nodded.

“It was all over the news, is why I ask,” Baldino said. “I thought I recognized you.”

Tom hadn’t thought he’d seen himself anywhere on the news; he had been watching it a lot during that time and would have remembered seeing himself, but maybe he missed it. Regardless, he didn’t want to see the smirk on Baldino’s face

He shrugged again. “I’m the only thing that looks like me around here.”

“Is that a confession?” Baldino asked lightly.

Something about the question, about the false ease, rubbed Tom the wrong way. He prickled up.

“Only as much as _this_ is an interrogation,” Tom fired back with ease. “You good if I go?”

“Not quite yet,” Baldino said, spinning slightly in their chair. “Are you familiar with the name Jaron Davis?”

He was—now that Baldino had put Jaron back into the forefront of his mind, Tom was curious to know how the young man was.

“You know Jaron?” Tom asked.

“If by know you mean collected his statement through an oxygen tube, then yeah,” Baldino said.

That confused Tom.

“Why does he need an oxygen tube?” Tom asked.

Baldino looked at Tom like they were speaking to a child. “Because,” they said slowly, “he can’t breathe on his own anymore. Because ya burned him down and left him to rot in a building.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “Ugh, this again. Look, if you survive, you survive. He might have injuries, but if they didn’t kill him, he’ll heal. That’s just how it is.”

Baldino stared at him for a long moment. Slowly, they pushed their chair back and rolled up a pant sleeve, revealing a prosthetic leg.

“Believe it or not, I didn’t just walk away from this one, Tom,” they said, pulling it off.

“Well, _you_ did, because you can still walk,” Tom argued.

Baldino glared. “Davis needs that tube because you did the equivalent of exploding a bomb in an ant colony to his brain. Never seen an officer so shattered. Never seen injuries quite like _that._ ”

“You’re young,” Tom said. A memory flashed of an arrow hitting Pythia right in the neck: a loud thunk, a sharp intake of breath, and more blood than Tom thought anyone could ever have. “You haven’t seen much.”

“You’d be surprised with what I’ve seen, boy,” Baldino shot back with a low growl. The growl was the equivalent of poking a sleeping bear—like the beast after a long winter, his anger stirred.

“Substitute teaching really have you moving around that much?” Tom asked skeptically, extremely annoyed and more than a little mad.

Baldino leaned back.  

Tom kept going, “And why do you care about Jaron anyway? There were thousands of faceless mortals hanging around watching, and not a single one gave a damn passed a few seconds of sympathy. What’s got you hanging on for so long?”

“Maybe it’s empathy,” Baldino growled. “Maybe it’s because I know what it’s like to be on a radar that no one wants to be on.”

“Oh, trust me,” Tom said, the air oppressively hot around them, “you have no idea.”

Baldino didn’t shrink back. His glare, icy cold, only served to make Tom’s anger start to bubble. It had been a while since he’d gotten truly angry. He had nearly forgotten how good it felt to let loose.

“Then,” Baldino nearly purred, hand reaching into their pocket and gripping something, “why don’t you enlighten me? Remove all doubt from _this brilliant little brain_.”

Something in Tom reacted with a primal rage to the way Baldino spoke to him in a voice that was more disgust than taunt, but still a healthy blend of both. A challenge was being issued, and Tom’s pride and bloodline both demanded that he answer the call, blow for blow and blood for blood.

He was being threatened—his place in this school, his newfound friends, the calm that had descended over his life (and Marco, sweet, wonderful _Marco_ )—all of it was being threatened.

It was more than just his anger that was being awakened, although it had slept semi-dormant for weeks, content that he was content. Something shifted inside of him, ancient and impossibly cold. Whatever it was, it solidified the anger in him like pouring water over lava. What happened was like nothing he’d ever experienced before—but then again, he’d never had anything he wanted to protect before, either. His anger, which had been so ready to burst through his skin and burn up Baldino until all that was left was that infuriating smirk, dissipated.

In its place was something worse. Something rock solid and forever. Something he’d never truly felt, pure and intense as the sun, solid and unmoving as the earth.

Hatred.

“ _Brilliant_ is an overstatement,” Tom purred right back, heat immediately gone from his voice and the room. His voice was saccharine sweet. “But I’ll be sure to figure _something_ out.”

Despite Baldino’s sharp call, Tom strode out of the room, cogs turning madly in his brain as he thought of the shift in his relationship with Mx. Baldino, profession hitherto unknown.

* * *

During the last period of the day, Tom was called to the Principal’s office.

The second he walked in and nodded to the secretary, Skeeves called,

 “Come in here, young man!”

The secretary didn’t shrug, but the look on her face had Tom grimly sure what this was about. He entered Skeeves’ room and closed the door behind him.

The first thing he noticed: lotions, all anti-itch, were stacked around the room. Tom sighed; it was a common side effect of immortality amongst those who weren’t well suited for it. The itch usually didn’t last long. It was just the way that immortality settled into the skin. That it had been well over two months since Skeeves had made his Deal was…unsettling. Tom, despite his personal feelings for Skeeves, hoped his suspicions were wrong.

“Why is it getting worse?” Skeeves said, a manic quality to his voice. “You said that it was temporary!”

“It is,” Tom said, ignoring the unending scratching. “Two months is nothing for an immortal. You just aren’t used to the change in perspective. Stop fighting it and it will settle on its own.”

“I’m not fighting it!” Skeeves said indignantly. “The damn thing won’t leave me alone! I haven’t gotten any work done in weeks!”

“Stop itching it,” Tom said. “It can’t settle if you’re always moving it around.”

Tom was speaking out of his ass. He was born with his immortality; it hadn’t bothered him a day in his life and he had no real clue as to how to make it _work_.

Still, the words seemed to help. Tom had learned that humans felt better when they had a goal to work towards. Skeeves nodded and slowly dropped his hand.

“If that’s all…?”

Skeeves said, “When does it stop talking?”

Tom’s heart sunk as his frustration rose. The stone only spoke for one reason.

“When it accepts you.”

Skeeves nodded slowly. “It’s getting louder,” he said, worried.

Tom nodded; didn’t say anything.

There wasn’t anything left to say. 

“It says… terrible things,” Skeeves whispered. Tom finally noticed the gaunt face, the haunted eyes, the oversized clothes. “I wish I didn’t ask for it.”

Tom turned. He moved towards the door.

“Wait,” Skeeves called, eyes suddenly lit with relieved excitement. “Make me a Deal! Get rid of it!”

Tom grabbed the door knob.

“Tom, Tom, come on!” Skeeves said, scrambling towards him. He tripped and crawled like an eager, malnourished dog towards a master that could offer neither comfort not relief. His hands hooked onto Tom’s shirt as he gave a feeble tug. “Please Tom, let’s undo this! I can give you free lunch for a year! Unlimited hall passes! We can work something out, Tom!”

His grip hardened.

“I’ll…try,” he managed to choke out between clenched teeth.

“Trying isn’t good enough!” Skeeves wailed. “I need it gone!”

Tom swung open the door, barely able to contain his rage.

“I told you before,” Tom said with a growl. “Being immortal sucks.”

He walked out. As the door swung shut, Tom could hear skin rubbing against fabric start again.

* * *

Tom had wanted to leave school unseen; he really didn’t want anyone to see him as angry as he was right now. He was walking out a good twenty minutes before the last bell, and the halls were almost deserted. It was surprising, therefore, to hear, 

“Tom! Wait up!”

followed by the sound of sneakers hitting linoleum as Marco ran to meet him before he pushed the last set of double doors open to freedom.

Marco’s easy smile fell the minute he saw the look on Tom’s face.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked. Tom winced. For a second, Marco had looked so happy, and Tom didn’t deserve the worried look on his face.

“Your principal is going to die,” Tom said, walking out. Marco didn’t hesitate—he followed a pace behind Tom outside.

It was a testament to how quickly they had become close that Marco didn’t flinch away from him. Instead, he drew closer, arm pressing into Tom’s.

“What are you talking about, Tom?” he asked, voice low and worried.

“Skeeves made a Deal with me so I could come here,” Tom said. “He wanted immortality. His body is rejecting it.”

Marco winced as they made if off the school grounds and headed towards the park. As they entered, Tom stared at the path they were following, admiring how straight forward this particular journey was and wishing his life was similar to it.

“That sounds…awful.”

Tom nodded. “It usually isn’t this slow. I don’t know why…but it’s like it’s punishing him.”

The anger was slowly draining away. Tom wasn’t feeling better, but he was feeling calmer.

“Is there any cure?” Marco asked.

Tom nodded. “Someone would have to take it from him.”

Marco startled.

“Like you wanted me to do,” he said quietly.

Tom nodded, inwardly wincing at the memory. “Immortality is the most visceral magic in existence. You have to rip open the skin and eat it, or nothing will change.”

“And it’s not like Skeeves has a donor ready for him,” Marco said.

Marco lead them to a trail that went around the lake. Tom clinically admired the clear water around the shore and tried his best to ignore how quickly it went from clear to pitch black the deeper the water went. They were walking side by side on a wooden bridge, fingers occasionally touching as they crossed over the lake.

“It sounds like you aren’t disappointed in me,” Tom said quietly. “When I saw you, I thought you would be.”

Marco shrugged, but he wasn’t making light of the situation.

“Skeeves is an adult. He knew what he was getting into,” Marco said consolingly. “It isn’t your fault that he made a bad choice.”

“I _didn’t_ tell him what he was getting into though,” Tom said, distressed. “He was annoying and cruel and vulgar, and I thought about it, and I told him it sucked, but I _didn’t_ tell him everything.”

Marco grunted, but didn’t say anything.

“He threatened Star,” Tom went on. “It was a bluff, but it set me off. He asked me to kill her.”

Tom felt Marco’s hand clench into a fist next to his.

“Now it’s going to drive him insane before it destroys him,” Tom said. “It’s going to take everything from him.”

“Good.”

Tom stopped; he couldn’t believe what he just heard.

“Excuse me?” he asked, flabbergasted.

“Good!” Marco said again, and Tom saw the anger burning within him. “He’s an awful guy! He’s made my life awful, he’s committed crimes, he’s rude and gross and mean and he wanted you to kill Star! He’s awful to everyone and awful at his job! Good! I’m glad he’ll be out of our lives! I’m glad he won’t be able to hurt anyone else! Good!”

“Marco, this doesn’t sound like you,” Tom said, not comprehending.

“It sounds exactly like me!” Marco said. “He tried to have me expelled! He tried to turn Star into his personal magic machine once! If his own greed finally turned on him, then good!”

“Can…can we sit down?” Tom asked weakly, feeling like he was missing something vital. He never knew that Marco could feel like this, and it was comforting…because when Marco said it was okay, Tom believed it.

Marco grabbed his arm and led him off of the trail, passed some trees until they reached a small hill covered with some soft looking grass. Marco sat and pulled Tom down with him, still fuming. They sat in a brooding, contemplative sort of silence for a while.

“I didn’t know you could get mad,” Tom said. _‘I didn’t know you could be evil, too.’_

Marco barked out a laugh.

“Believe me, I can get mad,” he said. “Maybe he doesn’t deserve it, maybe he does. I can’t judge that. But you said it’s happening no matter what…so maybe I’m not that upset about it.”

Marco laid back, his curls intertwining with the long blades of dark green grass. Tom’s fingers twitched. He was feeling about a hundred different things and all of them revolved around the human lying next to him.

“I’m always upset,” Tom said. “Or I’m waiting to be.”

“About Skeeves?” Marco asked skeptically.

“About everything,” Tom said. “Anything. I’m always mad, but even if I’m not mad it’s just a matter of time until I am.”

Marco rolled over to look at Tom, confusion and concern etched on his face.

“Why? What makes you mad?” he asked.

Tom shrugged.

Marco stared at him seriously, his attention completely affixed to Tom.

“Seriously,” he said, leaning on Tom’s thigh, “what makes you mad?”

“People, mostly,” Tom said nervously, very aware of Marco’s proximity to him. “When bad things happen to me. Or people I care about.”

“But _what_ about them?” Marco asked. “Do they get on your nerves?”

“No,” Tom said, fingers twitching again. Marco eyed them, then Tom.

“You mind if I lie down…?” Marco asked. Tom shrugged. What Marco did with himself wasn’t up to him. If he wanted to put his head in the grass, farbeit from Tom to stop him.

Marco shuffled around to get comfortable and Tom watched with some curiosity as Marco turned himself so that he was perpendicular with Tom.

Marco’s head hovered over Tom as he wiggled around on the grass until he was ready; without another word, Marco put his head down on Tom’s thigh.

Tom’s fingers automatically went to Marco’s hair, but he stopped himself in time.

It felt like a small eternity that Tom sat there, Marco’s head on his thigh, a heavy, comforting weight keeping him pinned, metaphorically and literally, right where he was. Again, his fingers twitched.

_‘Touch his hair, touch his hair, please god, let me touch your hair—”_

“You mind if I…?” he asked. Marco shrugged, and in a second Tom was running his fingers through Marco’s hair.

_‘It’s so soft…’_ Tom marveled, utterly enchanted. He’d wanted to do this for _months._

The repetitive motion helped Tom reel himself in and feel more whole. This had been a strange day to top off a strange month, and it was nice to be able to sit and be at peace.

Marco’s eyes closed and he hummed happily. “That feels nice.”

Tom smiled and felt himself blushing, but he wasn’t embarrassed. Marco was right; it did feel nice, and he wasn’t in the mood to get worked up about it.

“You know, you’re a really nice guy,” Marco said. “You’re really smart, too. Don’t let other people get to you. You have to own who you are and learn to like yourself.”

“Easier said than done,” Tom said, but his heart was soaring from the unprompted praise.

“I’m serious,” Marco said. “You don’t like Skeeves either, but you think you’ve failed or something and that made you mad. I could read it all over your face; you were about to snap.”

Tom didn’t say anything, surprised at what Marco was saying. Marco continued,

“Anger isn’t bad in small doses. But if you’re feeling it all the time, there’s something bigger going on. I don’t want to make you feel bad about yourself, because you don’t deserve that…but maybe we should talk about it sometime?”

Tom shrugged, kept carding his fingers through Marco’s hair.

“I’ll start then,” Marco continued. “What ever happened to your anger management dude? Brian or something like that? You fire him?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Tom said, thinking back to the Blood Moon Ball. “I was really mad when you and Star froze me and left.”

Marco didn’t understand what he meant at first. And then he did.

“I— _oh_ ,” he said, sounding small. Tom nodded.

“He knew it could happen, but…I really wanted to be better for Star,” Tom said, looking away. “I didn’t attack him but, he was caught in the fallout.”

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it, then,” Marco said. “You killed him.”

It stung, even if it was true.

“That doesn’t mean that you’re a lost cause,” Marco said. “Did you tell his loved ones?”

“He was alone,” Tom said. “It was part of him taking the job.”

Marco nodded. His head wrinkled Tom’s pants.

“So you killed Brian. You killed Skeeves. Anyone else I should know about?”

Tom shook his head. “I haven’t killed anyone else.”

“Then what do Skeeves and Brian have in common?” Marco asked.

Tom thought. From what he could remember, Brian and Skeeves were only similar in stature. Brain had been positive and kind. Skeeves…not so much.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Wrong,” Marco countered. “They have you in common. Specifically, they are both times where your anger got away from you because you failed.”

“I didn’t fail either of them,” Tom said sharply, nails running over Marco’s scalp. Marco shivered and leaned his head back, appreciative of the touch, but kept pushing:

“You promised Skeeves immortality and sent him into an early grave. And when Star and I got away, you killed Brian because you failed and lost control,” Marco countered. “I’m not mad, but let’s be honest here. You don’t like failure. No one does, and everyone does it. So why does failing make you so mad?”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Tom said curtly.

Marco nodded. “I’ll keep pushing you, you know,” he said. “Not now. But you shouldn’t feel like this. It’s not normal.”

“Maybe for Demons it is,” Tom said.

Marco’s eyes opened at Tom’s hands stopped moving.

“Does it feel normal?” he asked, eyes meeting Tom’s. His eyes shown in the sun, a warm brown that Tom wanted to wrap himself in. Still, he tore his eyes away.

“I don’t know,” Tom said. “No one ever said it should.”

“Think about all of the times you’ve lost control of your anger,” Marco said. “About why it happened and what happened and what it made you feel after. Tell me, when you’re ready, if that felt normal. Can you do that for me?”

Tom let the request marinate for a while. He liked that Marco cared enough to play therapist with him. He liked that Marco was lying on his lap, letting Tom pet his hair. He liked that he was warm and safe and that it was quiet on the little hill they were on.

“Yeah,” he said, softly, combing a curl behind Marco’s ear. “I can do that.”

They stayed that way as the sun grew heavy and the sky bled a cacophony of warm hues, and they stayed that way until stars, too numerous to count, twinkled into the black canvas of the sky. It was here, with Marco lulled into a gentle sleep on his lap that Tom saw a picture of perfection, of joy unalloyed, and it was here, with Marco, that Tom saw himself facing eternity and finally feeling not fear, and feeling not anger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Code hint  
> These are the words, out of order, the correspond to the numbers 1-11 for Pythia's prophecies: sorrow, a lesson, a single knell, hope, a kiss, a birth, a secret, bliss, dearth, hell, and hardship.
> 
> Numbers 2 and 4, 6 and 7, and 9 and 11 rhyme with themselves; ie, numbers 2 and 4 could be hell and a single knell. They aren't, but hopefully that's a clear explanation.
> 
> Guess any of them right and I'll add you into the story in some small way!


	7. Kryat Serpents

Baldino hadn’t been busy these past few weeks. It was making them antsy.

They glanced down at their encrypted phone again (Perezosa’s message was still pulled up) and read: avoid further contact until given all clear. Subject is extremely volatile. Will inform when COAL is a go.

Baldino frowned. They had been undercover for weeks and had helped create a basic plan of attack based off of the intel they had gathered about the subject. From that information, Perezosa had been able to rally R&D into whipping up some shiny new toys, which she sent prototypes of to Baldino when they had been complete. Baldino was itching for a reason to use one, and had thought there had been an opening with the near altercation that happened a few days ago.

Still, now was not the time to mourn what could have been the end to their illustrious teaching career. A plan had been formulated (and while they didn’t approve of the means at all, the end result could hardly be denied, because it  _would_  work) and was set to go off any day now.

Baldino grimaced when they went over the finer details again. Hopefully, things wouldn’t get too messy.

They couldn’t afford another New Yorc.

* * *

In September, the sun was out and the air was clean. Tom had found that he was enjoying the social aspects of school—not, so much, the academics.

He and Marco were sitting on the swings of another local park. It was late enough that no parents were still sitting watching their children play but early enough that local miscreants hadn’t bothered to come out yet.

What he was also growing weary of was his new therapist—or rather, Marco’s approximation of one.

“Do you know what it’s like to let someone you love down so badly they never want to see you again?”

“It’s the worst thing in the world,” Tom said, feeling suddenly like he wanted to jump up and rip everything out of his chest. “It made me want to die.”

Marco nodded slowly, lost in thought. “How many times has it happened?”

Tom thought back to Ludo and the school yard.

“Only once.”

Marco’s eyes, which had been nearly clouded over, focused on him.

“Why did you feel that?”

“Anger,” Tom supplied.

“Maybe,” Marco hedged. “Maybe something else, too.”

The Demon scoffed softly and Marco grabbed Tom’s hand and ran it through his hair. Tom’s hand repeated the motion almost mindlessly, carding his fingers through Marco’s hair as he spoke.

“Maybe…guilt, I guess,” Tom said. “It…hurt.”

“Maybe the loss of control,” Marco guessed.

Tom bristled; his fingers tensed in Marco’s hair.

“Maybe something else,” he growled quietly, gently pushing Marco off of him and stretching until every joint in his body cracked in a single, worrisome crack, like a clap of thunder following a mighty lightning bolt.

He stood and began to walk off, knowing Marco would follow him.

“Maybe not,” he heard Marco mutter, and Tom would have run if not for the steady sound of footsteps following behind him.

Sometimes, he wished Marco knew how much he held back for the human’s sake.

* * *

Toffee, contrarily, had been so busy he hadn’t had time to rest. Plans were in the works, dozens of them, all with backups and fail safes installed in case he needed to change courses mid-execution.

There were still many things left to do, but Toffee could feel the change in the air. The Monsters around him had been whipped into a near frenzy with how eager they were to fight for their rightful place in the Underworld and many of the more competent ones had slid into supporting roles of the effort naturally.

Of course, Ludo was still buzzing around, pestering everyone. His arm was still wrapped and his body still burned, but they had lost the ability to draw any pity anymore. Now, Ludo paced back and forth between bothering Toffee and bothering his lieutenants, and Toffee had just about had it. He’d make sure that Ludo didn’t make it out of the initial charge.

There was one major player left on the field that Toffee needed complete control of, but he was quickly finding out that the monster he had in mind was much more susceptible to influence than either of them had thought. Subtle nudges had put Toffee on almost equal footing with his grudging ally, and all that was needed were a few more pawns pushed carefully into place to ensure that he would not be turned on before he accomplished his goals.

They were so close. They knew when to attack, who to attack, and how to attack. They had the element of surprise and a willing traitor. There was only one more thing they needed before everything could be put in motion.

* * *

In October fourth period had no teacher or sub, so the class was split up and sent around the school. Marco and Tom, as well as several others, had been sent to Coach Noel. The coach had made them participate with his other students, which is how Marco and Tom had picked up a softball and were currently tossing it back and forth in a half-hearted attempt to look busy.

Tom caught the ball Marco had lobbed at him and answered almost immediately when his uncle called, a smile on his face.

“Hi Uncle Dan!” he chirped. Dantalion smiled back, looking just as happy.

“Hello Tom!” he said. “How have you been doing?”

“Really good, actually,” Tom said. “I’ve met a lot of people and I’m really happy with what I’m doing. What’s up?”

Dantalion grinned, looking a bit sheepish. “I’m well. I actually have a question for you, if you aren’t too busy.”

Tom nodded. “I’m free,” he said. “Go on.”

“I’ve been trying to find a gift to present to your parents as an apology, and I believe that I’ve finally found one. You’re familiar with Kryat Serpents, correct?”

Tom’s eyes widened and his stomach dropped in excitement. He tossed Marco the ball and turned a bit to get the sun off of his screen.

“You’ve killed one?” he asked in awe. “They’re huge!”

“Not yet,” Dantalion admitted. “But I’ve found one, and I know that I can kill this beast. The problem is—”

“—getting it to my parents,” Tom guessed.

“Exactly,” Dantalion confirmed. “They won’t come out to meet me, so I must bring it to them.”

Tom nodded, thinking back to the passageways and secret entrances into the castle he knew like the back of his hand.

“There’s an entrance that could be big enough that leads directly into the throne room,” Tom started. “Although depending on how old the Serpent is,  _that_  might not even work. It might be better to tell them about it and have them ride out.”

“I wouldn’t want to be a bother,” Dantalion said quickly. “Besides, it is my gift to my King and Queen; I can hardly ask them a favor while presenting them a gift.”

Tom shrugged. “If you say so. I take it talking to them hasn’t been working?”

Dantalion’s smile faded. “It hasn’t,” he said, shoulders slumping. “I’m hoping that this will appease them slightly where my words have failed.”

Tom grimaced. “I’m sorry that nothing’s been working, Uncle Dan,” he said sympathetically. “I’m really surprised they haven’t even listened to you.”

Dantalion shook his head sadly. “Perhaps some wounds are too deep to heal.”

“Unlikely,” Tom said with a snort. Dantalion offered him a smile.

“You are correct, of course, my dear nephew,” he said. “Now tell me, where is this entrance? I would like to bring them this gift as soon as possible.”

Tom told him, and his uncle’s eyes crinkled in affection.

“Truly, you are amazing, Tom,” Dantalion said. “My favorite nephew, my favorite Demon.”

Tom grinned again. “I hope everything works out well, Uncle Dan! I love you!”

Dantalion smiled back. “And I love you, Tom. I’ll tell you how things work out.”

They exchanged goodbyes and hung up.

“Who was that?” Marco asked.

“My uncle,” Tom responded.

Marco grunted. “Sounds nice,” he said, tossing the ball back.

Tom was giddy for the rest of the day.

* * *

November heralded brown leaves and more birds and bugs than Tom would have thought possible.  ~~His~~  Marco’s friends had decided to watch a migration, of what, Tom hadn’t heard. Star Butterfly was leading the way over a well-worn path, seemingly unfazed by the overstuffed purple backpack she was lugging behind her that looked like it weighed three hundred pounds.

Watching her excited bouncing, her eager exclamations, the way she effortlessly pulled everyone along and cajoled them until they were laughing with her reminded Tom of when he first asked her out. She was as lovely and brilliant as ever.

Directly behind her was Ferguson, who was trudging along with Alfonzo sitting on one shoulder and Janna perched on the other. He didn’t seem to mind it too much, although he repeatedly told them that they would be carrying him on the way back.

Behind them was Marco, who was holding a map and yelling almost frantically to Star which way she needed to go so they wouldn’t get lost.

Tom brought up the rear, watching the mortals hike along a path with rations for the day. He was bemused that they had decided to walk instead of use their scissors, but the sky was clear and the sun was out—Tom decided to shut down mentally for a little while and enjoy the journey.

He essentially put himself on autopilot—something that Marco had said wasn’t a trait humans shared with Demons with a bit of jealousy. He gave his body a mental order to follow Ferguson, who was walking at the steadiest pace. Effectively, Tom clocked out of consciousness and enjoyed the feeling of sun on his skin and people skittering around him.

In this warm haze, people and feelings and events swam around and intermingled with each other. A flash of Star throwing Ferguson and him over the goalpost of their field reminded him of the time he spent hiding from his mother with his father (he had been unable to control his laughter and got caught by someone he cared about dearly).

Thoughts of being a friend to his crush now pulled him back to the tense courting he put Star through however long ago (looking back, he had been so focused on getting her to like him that he honestly ignored the parts of their relationship that didn’t center on dates and flowers and chocolate. He never addressed what really scared her, what he dreams were, where she saw herself someday…). It felt like he knew so much about Marco from their conversations alone. Marco wanted to go to university in Minnesota (Tom had to learn where Minnesota was to appreciate Marco’s choice). He wanted to be a psychologist and help people. He laughed at some pretty awful jokes and was fiercely protective of his friends and family. And somehow, some way that was beyond Tom’s comprehension of mercy or grace, Tom had become a member of that privileged circle of people.

There was more, so much more, that he had learned, but as his mind drifted slowly through the haze, he too drifted in and out of consciousness. Were he a cat, he’d be purring.

If Tom had to wager a guess, they had been walking for close to an hour when Ferguson stopped. Shaken from his lull, Tom snapped to attention and rubbed the tired out of his eyes.

“They’re coming!” someone cried, probably Alfonso, and Tom hadn’t even opened his eyes before he felt a shadow descend over them.

“What—” he began, cut off by a bug hitting him square in the face.

Tom opened his eyes and batted another bug away. Around them were several bright orange butterflies that were eagerly flying South. Tom looked at  ~~his~~  Marco’s friends; their heads were tilted up and unconsciously, he lifted his head too to see what they were looking at.

The sky was filled with butterflies, so many that they blotted out the sun. Their wings shone against stray beams of light as they frantically beat. They were so numerous that combined, the winds they kicked up had a steady trail of dust kicked up behind them.

Tom gaped. More and more still passed them on the hill they had walked to, and Tom marveled at this beauty he hadn’t even imagined could exist.

“They’re monarchs,” Marco said from behind him. Tom turned, but Marco’s eyes hadn’t left the sky. “They go to Mexico every year to reproduce, but none of us had ever seen them migrate. Thought it would be cool to come see them.”

Tom nodded. “It’s amazing,” he confessed. “I never even  _thought_ …”

And as he was speaking, Marco’s eyes followed something to a space above his head, and he smiled.

“What is it?” Tom asked, smiling back.

“One landed on your horn,” Marco said. Tom tilted his head and saw a butterfly jump from its perch and fly passed Marco towards the miasma above them.

Tom smiled, happiness within him so intense and focused on the people around him, on Marco, that he could barely contain it within him. He felt like every last one of those butterflies in the sky was trapped within him, about to burst him open to escape to freedom.

They watched for longer than Tom believed possible for the butterflies to make their way passed them on the grassy knoll they had found themselves on until they disappeared over the horizon.

Nobody spoke; it was like something had come over them and no one could bring themselves to break the mystical silence that had wrapped its way around their group. Slowly, Star moved and grabbed Janna’s hand, and Alfonzo grabbed Ferguson’s, and then, unexpectedly, Marco grabbed Tom’s. Star pulled Janna along and as they passed, Janna linked hands with Alfonzo, and as they passed, Ferguson and Marco grabbed hands.

They pulled each other along; no words were spoken amongst them, but if anyone could feel what was in the air between them during their trek back to civilization, they wouldn’t have known what to call it other than love.

* * *

About three months had passed since Tom had started school. It was December and the edge had finally been taken out of the heat, much to Tom’s disappointment. However, it was drier than ever, which Tom was grateful for. With about ten minutes left until school was over, lessons were over and the class was mostly standing and chatting with each other. Tom saw that Marco was looking down at his phone, frowning.

Tom slid into the seat next to his and asked, “What’s up?”

Marco looked up and nodded to him. “It’s dry season. Fires are starting. People are starting to evacuate their homes to stay safe.”

“They’re leaving because of fire?” Tom asked.

“Yeah,” Marco said. “They’re huge. Miles and miles of burning land. There’s not really a way for us to fight them all at once. We have to contain them and hopefully let them burn out. A lot of people usually get hurt because of them.”

Tom thought for a moment, internally checking his schedule. He was free all day, if Marco was.

“You wanna go fight some fires after school with the Underworld’s only fire elemental?” he asked hopefully.

Marco’s face split into a smile.

“Hell yeah I do!”

When they stepped out of the portal in Napa, they were surrounded by fire. Thousands of embers swirled around them, each burning and eager to continue the blaze around them.

For a moment, Tom was transfixed by his element—it was beautiful. Rich oranges and reds surrounded them on all sides, creating a magnificent contrast with the deep blue afternoon sky. The bare mountains on the horizon covered equal parts in fire and forest made Tom yearn for home. The smoke only made everything look more alive—it twisted and grew with the wind, dancing between and around everything it touched. Tom inhaled—it smelled wonderful.

Next to him, Marco started to cough and put a hand over his mouth, watery eyes meeting Tom’s.

 _‘He can’t breathe,’_  Tom’s mind supplied.

Immediately, Tom raised one hand and grabbed Marco’s arm with the other; he willed the fire around them to die and the embers in the sky to cool, harden, and fall. The smoke quickly dissipated from where they stood, but the heat was still incredibly intense.

Marco shook Tom’s grip off and linked their hands.

“Take away the heat,” Marco gasped, still coughing. Tom quickly obliged, pulling the heat from Marco’s skin to keep him cool like he had in Skeeves’ office.

Now cool and breathing fresh air, Marco looked down at himself; he, like Tom, was completely covered in soot.

“Can’t do anything about that,” Tom said sheepishly, trying without success to wipe the soot off of his face. Marco mirrored the action (with the same failed result) and took a moment to look around, eyes wide and still red from the smoke.

He watched everything around them, and his hand clenched in Tom’s. Tom squeezed back, a little in awe of everything going on around him.

Beyond, the inferno raged.

“When you’re angry…does it feel like this looks?”

Tom was taken aback by the question.

“Can we not talk about that right now? I thought you wanted to fight some fires,” Tom said with a weak chuckle, starting to feel a little helpless. Why wouldn’t Marco stop pushing this when they were together?

Marco kept staring at the fires, unblinking.

“If I felt like this, I wouldn’t be able to control myself in a million years. It’s admirable that you manage it, most of the time. It’s almost understandable when you don’t.”

Tom’s fingers twitched.

“Marco, I don’t want—”

“—But you can’t change the nature of fire. It does what it’s meant to,” Marco said. “It burns.”

Marco looked at Tom, eyes alight.

“What’s your point?” Tom said, eyes narrowed.

“You’re mad right now,” Marco said. “I can see it in your face, even if you’re trying to hold it back. Even if we’re friends.”

“ _Are_  we friends though?” Tom spat out. “Or are you just trying to fix me?”

Marco shrugged. “I don’t think ‘both’ is a bad answer.”

“Well  _I_  think it is,” Tom growled. “What’s so wrong with me that you think something needs to be changed?”

Marco yanked his hand away as if it had been burned.

“Why would I think there’s something wrong with you? Why do you push me away every time I try to talk to you?” Marco yelled, immediately breaking out in a heavy sweat without Tom’s protection from the heat.

“Why do you think I need help?” Tom didn’t shriek, but it was a close thing. “Why do you even think I’m fixable?”

“You’re not evil, Tom!” Marco managed despite the rapidly rising flames. He hastily pulled off his sweater; his shirt was soaked through with sweat. “I know you’re not!”

“You  _don’t_  know that! You don’t know what I’m really like at all!”

Marco fell to his knees, panting. Around him, the flames were so high, so intense, that they could barely see the sun. It was unimaginably hot inside the small dome they were in.

“You’re better than  _this!_ ” Marco gasped.

A dark, ancient part of Tom wanted to let Marco burn and be done with everything.

“Am I, though?” Tom wondered incredulously. “I  _like_  you, and I’m capable of this.”

Marco gasped again; he hit the ground on his side and curled around himself, unable to breathe.

Tom watched, disassociated completely from the situation.

Every nerve in his body screamed to act, to steal the heat out of everything within a thousand miles of Marco for a single breath of air to reach his lungs.

Still, he watched.

Tom watched the flames dance unchecked, and if he looked, he could see the devastation they caused for hundreds of miles. Entire towns were burning around them. Animals were screaming as their nests and burrows collapsed and were lost to them flames. He could smell death in the air; there had been and continued to be a massive loss of life because of these flames. On the edges of the inferno, he could feel humans fighting back against the fire, but there was nothing they could truly do to curb it. The fire had a mind of its own.   

In that moment, something important happened.

“Why am I like this?” Tom wondered aloud. It was clear Marco couldn’t hear him anymore; he was too focused on dragging himself toward Tom for reprieve from the heat. “I fucking  _love_  you, and I’m like this.”

He was standing in the middle of a fire watching Marco die because he was so out of control he couldn’t even fathom it. It was like staring into the sun. It was like falling into the abyss. Marco was right. Marco was right.

The spell broke; Tom closed his eyes and concentrated hard.

In a second, they were in a field of ashes. Nothing so much as smoldered. There wasn’t a wisp of smoke in the air. Immediately, clouds began to gather above head.

The only sound Tom could hear was Marco’s heavy breath.

“It doesn’t feel normal,” Tom said, soul bared. “You were right. I can’t control my anger, and it doesn’t feel normal. I don’t want to be like this anymore.”

Marco’s chuckle quickly turned into a wheeze.

“I—knew it,” he choked out. “I  _knew_ …”

Tom moved; he gathered Marco up in his arms and he started walking away from the ashes they had been standing in. He checked Marco’s vitals as he walked down a charred dirt path; despite everything, Marco was okay.

Above them, the clouds darkened and fattened. Tom had pulled the heat from the air itself so quickly, so thoroughly, that it was going to rain.

Tom looked down at Marco’s face, emotions churning within him. Marco was breathing hard, still fighting against the smoke in his system. The first drops of rain began to fall.

When the first droplet hit Marco’s forehead, the soot rubbed off and left a dark trail down the side of his face. The second hit his cheek almost immediately after, and Tom could feel fat drops on his back and head. He watched Marco’s face as the gentle patter eventually picked up and became a torrential downpour. He watched as the last remnants of the fire were wiped away from Marco’s face. He could feel the rain on his own face and knew the same was happening to him.

There was no lightning, no thunder in the sky. Just the rain and a cool wind for company, and the strange sound of cool, replenishing water impacting with brittle, dry ground.

Tom wondered what the future would hold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw someone inhales some smoke and chokes
> 
> the chapter is a little shorter than usual but I like it! Things will be kicking off soon ;)


End file.
